The Balkan wars, being a series of lectures delivered at the Army service schools, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

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THE BALKAN
WARS

LECTURES

OELIVERED A I

tmp: army service schools

FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS

BY

Clyde Sinclair ford

MAJOR MEDICAL CORPS, I' "-. *

THE ARMY 8ERYICE SCHOOLS

1915

THE BALKAN
WARS

BEING A SERIES OF

. LECTURES

DELIVERED AT

THE ARMY SERVICE SCHOOLS

FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS
BY

CLYDE SINCLAIR FORD

MAJOR, MEDICAL CORl'S, U. S. A.

PRESS OF THE ARMY SERVICE SCHOOLS

1915

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Introduction

IN ACCEPTING the burden of proof for my presumption, as
a non-combatant, in addressing a body of officers of the

combatant arms of the service on such a subject as " The
Balkan Wars," I feel it incumbent upon me to give a brief
account of my contact with the Balkan situation, covering a
period of eighteen months, which afforded the opportunity
for my observations.

About the 1st of July, 1912, I landed in Trieste on sick
leave of absence which was later arranged to terminate with
the end of the year. From this port I took passage for a tour
of the Dalmatian coast, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic,
stopping at Pola, the principal Austrian naval base, Sebinicio,
Spalato, Ragusa, and as far south as Cattaro, at the head of
the Bays of Cattaro, which form a harbor much like that of
New York with the sea as far away from the port as Sandy
Hook is from Castle Garden. Cattaro, while Austrian and one
of the finest naval harbors in the world, is the logical port of
Cetenje, the capital of Montenegro. As an automobile post-
route line between Cattaro and Cetenje was discovered, I con-
tinued my journey to Cetenje and the Lake of Scutari. On
returning to the northern Adriatic by the same route, I landed
at Flume, crossed by rail to Trieste and thence by sea to
Venice.

In September, 1912, I went by rail from Vienna, through
Buda-Pest, Belgrade, Sofia and Adrianople, to Constantinople,
where I remained three weeks with my friend. Major J. R. M.
Taylor, our capable and accomplished military attacM. There
were, at that time, echoing about Constantinople large and
glowing rumors of the coming war, but as one can always hear
anything and everything, both true and false, anywhere in
the near East, and not knowing what or whom to believe, I
grew so impatient in waiting for the long-advertised and often
postponed "Balkan conflagration'* that I sought refuge again
in the less distrustful environments of Paris, returning there
by way of the Black Sea through Constanza and Bucharest.

War was actually declared between the Balkan States
and Turkey on October 17, 1912. In the last days of October

'" 333434

the interest of the Parisian public seemed to be divided
between the two great and absorbing world's events— the
debacle of the Turkish army in Thrace, which promised the
celebration of another Christian mass in the Mosque of St.
Sofia, and the progress of the Becker murder trial in New
York, which revealed a police conspiracy of a magnitude
that threatened the security of the American Republic, My
own personal interests were so unpatriotically prejudiced that
on the last day of October I abandoned my own country to its
destiny, completed my monthly personal report with a re-
putable European capital as my temporary address and, after
nightfall, boarded a sleeping-car which carried me through
Roumania to Constanza, whence I sailed for Constantinople
to arrive November 3d, or just about the time the Turkish
army began to dig itself in on the Chatalja line for the stubborn
defense of Constantinople.

A local chapter of the American National Red Cross
Society, formed under the presidency of the late lamented
Mr. Rockhill, the American ambassador, had been at work for
several weeks assembling material and collecting funds, but a
field party had not been organized. Five thousand dollars
had been received from the American National Red Cross
Society and many times that amount had been secured from
private sources at home and abroad, through the personal in-
fluence of Mr. and Mrs. Rockhill, Mr. Hoffman Philip of our
Embassy, Dr. Gates of Roberts College, Dr. Patrick of Con-
stantinople College, and other members of the American
colony. I deeply regret that neither the time nor this oppor-
tunity permits further mention of that personal service which
the American ambassador and ambassadress rendered in their
most capable and devoted administration of the American
National Red Cross Chapter in Constantinople.

On the day of my arrival I was named as chief surgeon of
the Red Cross field party and began at once its organization
and a search for a field of labor. After much importunity and
in the face of the great obstacles of inertia in Turkish adminis-
tration, we found a service in a large, crude military hospital
which had just been improvised in the old military barracks
of Tash Kishla, well within the European quarter of Con-
stantinople. We assumed the professional care, administration
and financial support of an operating room and two wards
with a total of 120 beds and as many wounded soldiers. After
about a month's service when I was due to leave Constanti-
nople on account of the termination of my sick leave, I was
placed on a duty status at the American Embassy, on the re-
iv

quest of the American ambassador. Our service was continued
six months, and we treated atTashKishla Hospital 600 patients
with three deaths and no complete amputations. For the
second two weeks of this period, in company with Mr. Hoff-
man Philip and the Rev. Robert Frew, a Scotch Presbyterian
minister of Constantinople, I also had personal charge of our
specially organized Red Cross party which assumed the pro-
fessional management, subsistence and financial support of
the cholera camp at San Stephano, in the suburbs of Con-
stantinople, where we had corraled in a compound, with the
aid of an efficient guard, 600 Turkish soldiers, among whom
there were 400 cholera cases with 200 deaths.

During the period of the second armistice, or, in April
1913, I made two visits to the Chatalja line. On the first
occasion the Sanitary Inspector General, Abdul Selim Pasha,
sent me in an automobile through the camps and sanitary
stations on the right wing of the army from Heydemkeui, the
rail base, to the Black Sea. When I returned, some days later
1 accompanied this distinguished and courteous officer on a
special two-daj^ sanitary inspection trip through all the camps
and sanitary stations on the left wing, extending from the
same starting point to the Sea of Marmora, and including the
advanced left flank beyond Buyuk-Checkmudje.

The Second Balkan War began began July 1, 1913, and on
July 11th I was able to accompany a gentleman, whose transit
had been arranged through foreign offices, from Constanti-
nople by way of the Black Sea to the Bulgarian port of
Burghas, thence by rail to Sofia. A few days later I was as-
signed to regular military duty with a Bulgarian evacuation
hospital for wounded on the Macedonian frontier atKustendil,
which was also the headquarters of the 5th Bulgarian Field
Army. 1 remained there for a month, during which time
about one half of the 10.000 cases which passed through this
hospital during the war were admitted. During the armistice
which terminated hostilities, I was taken by the chief surgeon
over the positions of the 5th Army and through the camps and
sanitary stations.

After the conclusion of peace, in company with the
American and British iniMtsLvy attaches in Sofia, who secured the
permission of the Servian War Office,! went from Sofia to Nish
and from there to Komanovo and as far as Kochina, in the
Valley of the Bregalnitca, in Macedonia, covering the battle-
fields of the Servian armies which were opposed to the Bul-
garian 4th and 5th Armies with which I had had my service.
I returned to Constantinople late in September, 1913, by way

V

of the Danube, Coiistaiiza and the Black Sea. In October,
just one year after the defeat of the Turkish army in Thrace,
but after the unopposed Turkish reoccupation of that province,
I went to Adrianople and from there followed the route from
the field of its defeat to Chorlu, where the headquarters took
the train in flight to the Chatalja line. My return to Con-
stantinople was by the Port of Rodosto on the Sea of Marmora.
Later, I went again to the Chatalja district to view the scene
of devastation wrought by the five different mihtary move-
ments which had swept over Thrace in a year. My return
from this trip was by way of JSilivri and the Marmora. In
December, 1913, I took my leave of Constantinople by way of
the Oriental Railway, stopping at Belgrade, and continuing
through Buda-Pest and Vienna on my return to Paris.

VI

irst Lecture

The Causes and Course of the
Balkan Wars

WHILE some recent events in the Balkan Penin-
sula may be cited as providing occasion for the
Turko-Balkan War of 1912, the causes, obscured by
racial prejudices, religious traditions and political
aspirations, are so confused with the early history of
Eastern Europe and even with that of Asia, that an
understanding of the fundamental forces must involve
a cursory survey extending back, at least, beyond the
time of the Moslem invasion of Christian Europe to
the earlier period when the eastern flank of the
Roman Empire was the bulwark for Europe against
the barbaric hordes advancing from the East and
North.

A settlement on the Bosphorus, founded by the
Megarian Greeks in the Seventh Century b. c. (658),
was first called Byzantium, but after a well-seasoned
maturity of 1,000 years (330 A. D.) it replaced Rome
as the capital of the Roman Empire and since has
been known as Constantinople from the emperor
who made the change, Constantine the Great. The
inhabitants of the city at this time were almost
entirely Greeks and the language of the people and
commerce was Greek. Only the ruling classes and
the aristocrats, whom Constantine induced to come
from Rome, spoke the official Latin, and later, after
the fall of the Latin Empire in the Thirteenth Century
(1261), the language of the court and the people alike
was again Greek. For this reason the region that

— 2—

was once the Eastern Empire is still cherished by the
modern Greek as their patrimony. This spirit was
most ingeniously revivified when Napoleon paid some
attention to the Greeks. From their philology of his
name and the fact of early Greek immigration to
Corsica, he was hailed as a descendent of their race,
and it is said that the women of Maina kept a lamp
lighted before his portrait "as before that of the
Virgin.'' In the dreams of ''the glory that was
Greece'' the Hellenic race saw visions of the restora-
tion of the Byzantine Empire under the Greek
Emperor, Napoleon I. The victories of two years
ago have revived again the vision of ancient empire,
currently known as ''The Great Idea."

History did not wait until the beginning of the
Eighteenth Century for an appreciation of the
strategical advantages or a desire for possession of
Constantinople, like that of Peter the Great who
said: "Whoever shall reign there will be the true
master of the world." In the Fourth Century B. c.
(390) Philip of Macedon laid an almost successful
siege to the Greek Byzantium, until Demosthenes
aroused the Athenians to send a relief expedition
which saved the city until the Romans came several
centuries later. The siege habit thus formed
became so chronic that the great sieges of Con-
stantinople, down to the present time, are said to
number about thirty. The Roman emperors had not
reigned a century (405-450, Theodosius II) before the
capital was threatened by the Huns who came again
within the next hundred years (527-562, Justinian)
and made an almost successful assault.

The Slavs followed the Huns into the Balkan
Peninsula and they in their turn battled at the walls
of Constantinople. Late in the Sixth Century (580-
600) the Slavs likewise in their turn were overrun
and suffered the outrage of their "culture and

.— 3—

civilization'' by a yet fiercer and wilder horde, de-
tached from a biological glacier of Northern Asia,
which swept from the banks of the Volga across the
Danube and out onto the Balkan plateau. This grim,
raw, invading race was called by the Greeks Voul-
garia, and Gibbon interpreted this name of a ''Volga-
folk'' into the form in which it occurs today as
*'Bulgar" or ''Bulgarian." The very name of these
people, once an epithet of hatred and contempt of
the Byzantine culture of the Seventh Century, is still
cherished by the modern Greeks as a term of bitter
scorn applied to the derided and alleged civilization
of the simple but worthy people bearing that name
today. The racial characteristics of these invading
Bulgars, despite the recent studies of the modern
Greeks who have discovered that they once had
hoofs, horns, and hairy bodies, were so little opposed
to the good manners of the comparative civilization
and culture of the Balkan Slavs whom they conquered,
that within a century they were racially absorbed by
their subject people and left only their name, as a
mark of their passing dominance, to an empire which
pushed its frontier almost to the Bosphorus at the
time a Bulgarian prince laid siege to Constantinople
early in the Ninth Century. We can thus see how
in origin the people of the Balkan Peninsula are so
confused and how futile has been their struggle to
unravel the ethnological tangle that has been so
complicated by their many changes of sovereignty.
The Goths, Huns and Vandals passed elsewhere
without leaving trace of their few centuries of
sojourn. But there are people in the Balkans today,
living in different colonies, who trace their origin
to the Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Slavs
and Bulgars, and upon these several boasted ances-
tries they are still striving to perpetuate race and to
erect national institutions.

The Slavs in the western part of the Balkan
Peninsula who were undefiled by the blood of the
Northern Asiatics preserved their racial entity and
developed national aspirations out of which arose the
ancient Kingdom of Greater Servia. At one time or
another, in the Middle Ages, a Bulgarian or a Servian
Empire covered the greater part of the Balkan Pen-
insula. In the Tenth Century (892-927) the Bulgarian
Czar Simeon assumed the somewhat confident title of
*'Czar of the Bulgars and Autocrat of the Greeks/'
His successor Samuel extended the empire until
Bulgaria, in this heroic age, reached from Adrianople
to the Adriatic. As Macedonia was embraced by
these boundaries, the ''Macedonian Question, '' which
still remains unsolved after all the attempts of ten
centuries, was thus incidentally opened. It seems to
have started, however, with those characteristic
attributes, which, still preserved in the form of
''atrocities," have continually re-echoed the cry,
"Come over into Macedonia and help us!'' It may
be that the "Macedonian Question" was made some-
thing of a permanent issue by the Bulgarian Czar
Simeon, who had such bad manners as to send back
to Emperor Leo in Constantinople the Roman noses
which he had removed from the latter's vanquished
legions.

But the tide turned, as it has so often turned in
the Balkans, and the Bulgarians were suppressed for
a century and a half. Then the Orthodox Christian
Emperor Basil in Constantinople, not wishing to
be outdone in convincing cultural methods, sent to
the Bulgarian Czar Samuel 15,000 Bulgarian prisoners
whom he had blinded, except for one eye left to
every hundredth man to lead his sightless comrades
back to Samuel, who is said to have died from grief
for their wretched plight. So it seems that atrocities
are indigenous to the Balkans and were practiced by

Christian races, at least in their grosser forms, be-
fore the Turks came to add some of their own peculiar
refinements.

About the end of the Twelfth Century, when the
Bulgarian Empire was almost identical in extent
with the ''New Bulgaria,'' delimited by the treaty of
San Stefano in 1877, the Byzantine Empire was
hurrying to its end. Then Servia became so for-
midable that in another century Bulgaria was en-
gulfed by a Servian Empire with a real czar like
Duzan, who, in 1346, proclaimed himself ''Czar of
Macedonia, Monarch of the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians
and people of the Western Coast.*' With traditions
of such a monarch, how could any people forget
their national destiny?

About this time a new and graver complication
menaced the Balkan Peninsula, when the Turks, in
1359 A. D., crossed the Dardenelles and made their
first entry into Europe. This was the real occasion
for the first Balkan League, for, at that time, had
the Bulgars and Serbs joined the Greeks against the
Turks, they could have prevented the injection into
Europe of an element that has always been non-
assimilable and which must some day be returned to
the shores of Asia. Von der Goltz Pasha, who, as
military adviser, was with the Turks for twelve
years prior to 1895, has told them repeatedly, and he
said again, just before the last war, that their place
was in Asia and their only hope and salvation lay in
return to Anatolia to establish their capital on the
ancient site of their early grandeur at Konia.

The Turks soon occupied Thrace and established
an European capital at Adrianople. Then, as the
Bulgarian state had been absorbed by the Servian
Empire, the Balkan Slavs (Serbs and Bulgarians)
under the Servian Czar Lazar, made their last stand
against the Turks at Kossovo in Northwestern

—6—

Macedonia in 1389. With their defeat, the Turkish
inundation of the Balkan Peninsula was complete
except for Montenegro, which alone was unsub-
merged. This little state began its existence at this
time with a remnant of the Servian army which fled
to the Black Mountains on the Adriatic, where they
have since remained with the unique distinction and
intense personal satisfaction of being the only people
in Southeastern Europe to have escaped the Turkish
yoke.

The Turkish possession of the Balkan Peninsula
was completed when Mohammed the Conqueror
crossed the Bosphorus and captured Constantinople
in 1452, when Columbus was yet a boy.

In the Sixteenth Century, the Ottoman Empire,
in the reign of Suleman the Magnificent (1520-1586) ,
attained the zenith of its glory, when it reached
from the Persian Gulf to Buda-pest, although a
century later (1683) the western border was tem-
porarily advanced to the walls of Vienna, from where
the armies of the decadent sultans were turned back
on that long recession, which, at last, bids fair to go
beyond the Bosphorus. In the following or Eighteenth
Century the Turks were driven out of Hungary and
Transylvania, and, with Roumania always from that
time on more of a Russian than a Turkish province,
the Ottoman Empire had entirely receded within the
Balkan Peninsula and became a wholly eastern state,
lying south of the Danube and the Save and between
the Adriatic and the Black Sea. In this period and
state of repose of the Ottoman Empire, the ''Eastern
Question'^ assumed its modern form. It has been
described as "the problem of filHng up the vacuum
created by the disappearance of the Turk from
Europe," and now, after the diplomatic conferences
and wranglings of two or three centuries, an approved
solution seems about to be submitted by the more

— 7—

definite processes of war. In the next or Nineteenth
Century, Greece waged a successful war of indepen-
dence (1815-21).

Servia, after passing through various vicissitudes,
somewhat influenced by Austrian and Russian di-
plomacy and intervention in Turkish affairs, was
offered, in 1820, recognition by the Porte as a sort of
an autonomous province. Servian delegates sent to
Constantinople for negotiations were kept there under
observation for five years; then, after another revo-
lution and when Turkey was involved in Egypt, the
Porte finally recognized the Servian principality and
thus liberated the latent forces of racial and national
sentiment which developed into a powerful factor in
the later disruption of European Turkey.

The next eventful discussion of the ** Eastern
Question," in 1854, assumed the form of the Crimean
War, and although the Turk and his territory were
the unconfessed elements of contention, the cause
was given to the world in the sublime spectacle of
two Christian nations (Russia and France) flying at
each others' throats over the custody of the tomb of
Christ, which happened to be in the keeping of the
followers of Mohammed. It came about by Russia's
thinking the final collapse of Turkey was near and
demanding the recognition of her protectorate over all
the Orthodox Christian subjects of the Sultan. But
as this was equivalent to the destruction of the Otto-
man Empire, France, England and Sardinia supported
the Turks and defeated Russia. The only result of
this belligerent discussion of the "Eastern Question''
was the treaty of Paris (1856) which bound the
signatories "to respect the independence and terri-
torial integrity of the Ottoman Empire."

This period was followed by the development of
a Bulgarian national spirit which had been gradually
awakening to consciousness from the beginning of

the century, although it had been persistently and
maliciously suppressed— not by the Turks, but by the
Greek national spirit, exhibited through the political
organization of the Orthodox Church in which all
Bulgarians were communicants. But the Turkish
government, at last, in 1870, in conformity with its
long established policy of playing both ends against
the middle, saw its opportunity to array one subject
race against another, in order to keep them so occu-
pied with their own troubles that they would be of
less trouble to their masters. The Sultan then
established an independent Bulgarian Church and
placed its ecclesiastical machinery in the hands of a
Bulgarian hierarchy under a Bulgarian exarch.

In this connection one might recall the incident
of 300 years before, when, in 1472, twenty years
after the fall of Constantinople, the separation of
the Church of Constantinople and the Church of
Rome was announced— the former taking the name
of ''Orthodox*' and the latter remaining ''Roman.''
The Greeks charged to the Latin Pope of Rome the
responsibility for the desertion of the Bulgarians
from the Orthodox Church and the Pope construed
the event as a just and natural consequence of the
schism of the Greeks. The Greeks, naturally out-
raged, resented the blow to their civilization and
culture in the turning over to such a barbarous people
as the Bulgarians a perfectly good religion which
they had held in custody so long, and, besides, they
maintained vehemently that it was all the worse,
because there were no Bulgarians. Horrible spiritual
atrocities, administered with vengeance and vin-
dictiveness, were perpetrated by the Greeks upon
the Bulgarians in the form of excommunications and
damnation. The Bulgarians, however, had some
little claim to a specialized religion of their own, if
they wanted one, because their Czar Boris accepted

— 9—

Christianity in the middle of the Seventh Century
and became such an enthusiastic advocate of the
newly adopted system of worship that he gave his
subjects the choice of the new faith or one of his
several favorite forms of extermination. The new
faith became immediately very popular among the
Bulgars.

Two Greek monks, Cyril and Methodus, went as
missionaries to Bulgaria; Cyril invented an alphabet
and reduced the Bulgarian language to written form.
From the Cyrillic alphabet the Russian written lan-
guage was derived and in this language the Russian
Orthodox religion was taught. The Bulgarians,
however, seemed to thrive on the expurgated religion
of the Greeks as they used their own ecclesiastical
organization so effectively in the awakening of a
national spirit in their people that they produced,
after only a few years (1876), an insurrection in
Macedonia that was far from being contemptuous
and which was reechoed in the Herzegovnia. The
Turks were held to have practiced such cruel atrocities
in the efforts to suppress these uprisings that Russia
again espoused the cause of the Sultan's Christian
subjects. The Russo-Turkish War in 1877 was the
direct result.

This war was closed, after the complete defeat
of the Turks, with the prevention of the entry
of the Russians into Constantinople by the armed
protest of Europe. Peace was established at San
Stephano in 1878 by direct negotiations between the
belligerents. Though the terms were Slavonic and
the principal provisions of this treaty established an
independent state of Bulgaria, of about the same
extent as the empire of the Middle Ages, it might
have succeeded, if it had remained in effect, in
establishing the equilibrium of the Balkans by bring-
ing a homogeneous people under one national govern-

—10—

ment. And if the Treaty of San Stephano had not
been supplemented by the Treaty of Berlin, the sub-
sequent attempts to make the ethnographic conform
to geographic boundaries in Macedonia might have
been indefinitely postponed.

The local interests of the Balkans could not be
isolated from the politics of Europe, which were
united against Russia and forced the Treaty of Berlin
as a substitute for the Treaty of San Stephano, and
thereby effected a Teutonic instead of a Slavonic
settlement. As England at this time feared more
the aggression of the Slav than the Teuton, Beacons-
field supported Bismarck in the determination to
prevent an eastern extension of the strong Slavonic
frontier in the form of a new and strong Slav state.

The dissatisfaction of Europe with the Treaty of
San Stephano was so definite that the suggestion for
its revision at Berlin was not made without some
demonstration. England ordered her Indian troops
to Malta and called out her reserves. Austria
mobihzed. England at this time feared more from
Russia than she cared for Macedonian Christians,
but Lord Salisbury, the British Foreign Secretary
who negotiated the Berlin Treaty, afterwards said
that, in her support of the Turks, * * England backed the
wrong horse.''

What the Treaty of San Stephano had formed
into one state, the Treaty of Berlin divided into
three parts, namely: The Turkish principality of
Bulgaria, the Turkish province of Eastern Roumelia
with a Christian governor, and Macedonia, restored
to Turkey with certain reforms in government im-
posed. Besides this, Austria was permitted to occupy
and administer Bosnia and the Herzegovnia and to
establish garrisons and other controls in the Sanjak
of Novi Bazar, which, as Turkish territory, extended
to the Bosnian frontier between Montenegro and

—11—

Servia, and thus effectually separated these two
Slav states.

While all these details may be tedious and are of
little interest to Americans, the man-in-the-street in
Europe is quite well versed in them. My first and
violent projection into the maze of European politics
was occasioned by an Austrian whom I met in a
railway carriage in his country, much after the
fashion in which one meets the representative
American in the smoking compartment of a Pullman
car in this country. He said something about the
' ' Sanjak of Novi Bazar. ' ' In my ears the unfamiliar
name seemed to awaken some sort of association
with, perhaps, the wandering Sinbad the Sailor, or
the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, but my Austrian
friend informed me that his country would be com-
pelled to go to war if any nation violated the treaty
rights and economic supervision that Austria exer-
cised over the * 'Sanjak of Novi Bazar." This was
more than two years ago, and this gentleman was
neither a politician nor a diplomat; he was only a
doctor. This irritating geographical blight is not
really funny— except its name, and even that is very
ordinary, after all. Turkish administrative divisions
are *'vila jets'' or states and ''sanjaks'' or counties,
and in this particular sanjak there is the town of
Novi Bazar; hence the name.

While the Treaty of Berlin was made to suit the
convenience of Europe as a bond of peace for thirty-
six years, it received several little jolts before it was
entirely jarred to pieces by Austria's recent ultimatum
to Servia.

In view of the decidedly opposed opinions of at
least two of America's **first citizens" as to whether
a treaty is really a ''peace bond" or only a "scrap
of paper," it may be interesting to quote, in refer-
ence to the Berlin Treaty, the words of a contempor-

—12—

ary historian (William Miller), who, in March, 1913,
long before the current controversy arose, wrote the
last pages of his ''Ottoman Empire, 1801-1913,'"
After giving a number of instances in which almost
every signatory power and more than one small state
had violated their solemn international agreements,
he concludes: **But to regard the tattered Berhn
Treaty as an inviolable law of nature is to ignore
the fact that in the imperfect world of politics, inter-
national arrangements are only binding as long as
the contracting parties choose to be bound by them
or the population concerned are weak and disunited.
When for the first time in history, the * Little
Neighbors' of Turkey joined hands against her with
the double strength of enthusiasm and organization,
the Treaty of Berlin, like all artificial creations,
succumbed before the force of nature/' An Areo-
pagus seems now to be sitting through a winter
session in both Belgium and Poland, which is de-
voting itself to the revision of this now obsolete
document.

Bulgaria's national existence began under Prince
Alexander of Battenburg in 1878. From the be-
ginning, this young and patriotic ruler— he was only
23 years of age when he was called to his brand-new
Bulgarian throne— showed more interest in the future
of his state than in [respecting Russia as its parent
and regarding himself as the tutor of her child.
There is no doubt that Russia intended to do what
her political antagonists believed she would do; and
that was to turn Bulgaria into an outpost for the
Slavonic advance on the Bosphorus. In fact, Europe
did not believe that Russia's southern progress had
been stopped. It was known that her advance was
only retarded, and it was also realized that another
checking process would have to be applied on the
sign of her next move.

—13—

But the Bulgarians had no intention, after their
escape from the oppression of one master, to accept
the rule of another, even though the latter had been
their benefactor. This attitude, however, has eminent
historical precedent, for Bismarck has said that a lib-
erated people are always most exacting of their Hber-
ators. In 1885, after seven years of Bulgaria's na-
tional existence, Prince Alexander annexed Eastern
Roumelia, after the almost entirely Bulgarian popu-
lation had begun a revolution against Turkish sover-
eignty. Russia was offended and Servia was induced
to declare war on Bulgaria on account of the threat-
ened disturbance of the balance of power in the Balk-
ans. Russia's intention to discipline her ungrateful
offspring was shown in her malicious efforts to cripple
the defense of Bulgaria, so as to render her an
easy prey to Servia. At the time of Servians
declaration of war, Bulgaria's army was concen-
trated in Eastern Roumelia, on the Turkish frontier,
in anticipation of a conflict with the Turks. The
strength of this army, including reserves and about
35,000 volunteers from Eastern Roumelia, was about
90,000 men, which represented the entire military
resources of the state.

The military instruction of the Bulgarians had
been begun by and was then in the hands of Russian
officers, with a Russian Minister of War. For the
eight years of the Bulgarian army's existence, the
educational system had produced enough Bulgarian
officers to fill all the subaltern grades and about half
of the captaincies. All other commissioned grades
in line and staff, from the Minister of War down,
were filled by Russians. With this organization of
the army, and with Turkey as a likely enemy to pre-
vent the annexation of Eastern Roumelia, the Czar
delivered a thunderbolt to the Bulgarians when he
ordered all Russian officers to return to Russia just

—14—

at the time Servia declared war. It was for Russia
to visit upon recalcitrant Bulgaria just retribution.
The offish and uppish Bulgarian braggarts were to
receive their fitting reward, as the Servians would
march at once on Sofia to find everything in disorder
and to achieve an easy victory. Crushed and humili-
ated, Bulgaria could then be brought to terms. On
the day that war was declared the Servians had at
least 70,000 men mobilized on their frontier, ready
for immediate action. Whatever disadvantage this
situation may have had for the state, it certainly
made a fine day for promotion in the Bulgarian
army. Captains, overnight, became Minister of
War, lieutenant, major and brigadier generals,
saying nothing of the few score of colonelcies and
majorities that were scattered around. The success-
ful work of army reorganization and the leading of
the Bulgarian army to decisive victory, which dis-
persed the Servian army amply demonstrated the
capacity of these young officers to discharge the
functions of their new offices. The Bulgarians could
and certainly would have marched to Belgrade but
for Austria's warning that her troops would be met
there in that event.

As an illustration of the hardy vigor of the Bul-
garians in this campaign, an incident of their march-
ing capacity may be worthy of mention in passing.
A regiment, which had maintained its full strength
of 5,000 men through a number of days of hard
marching from the eastern toward the western Bul-
garian frontier, arrived in the evening at Ischkeman,
a town fifty kilometers (thirty-one miles) east of
Sofia. As a decisive engagement with the Servian
army seemed imminent within a day or two, this
regiment was ordered to proceed with all possible
expedition towards the western frontier.

Without camping for the night, the march was

—15—

resumed and Sofia was reached by morning. As
there were some foot-sore and sick which could not
keep the pace of the column, a rather ingenious
device was employed to help them along. There
were at Sofia, at that time, 300 unbroken, untrained
Hungarian remounts which could not be used in any
regular military service. From the civilian com-
munity a fleet-footed leader— woman, boy, or old
peasant unfit for military service— was turned out
for each horse. The horses were led along the road
until they met the regiment, when two stragglers
were mounted on each led horse, and all were able
to keep pace with the column as it arrived in Sofia.
Here the peasantry had turned out along the roadside
with rations prepared for the entire regiment, which
fell out to eat and rest on the spot for four hours.
The march was then continued for thirty-three
kilometers (twenty-one miles) to Slivetza, where the
decisive engagement had begun, and, as the regi-
ment had not been previously engaged and had
maintained its full strength, its arrival contributed
materially to the Bulgarian victory.

This regiment had thus marched fifty-two miles
in twenty-four hours. Packs and all equipment
except rifle, ammunition and overcoats were aban-
doned, by order, as the indication arose along the
line of march.

While this reference may be a diversion from the
subject, the incident furnishes details that are of
sufficient interest to be reviewed again under the
caption of "A Forgotten Campaign.''

As it did not suit the convenience of the Ottoman
government to make armed resistance against the
Bulgarian annexation of Eastern Roumelia, and as
Europe acquiesced in this violation of the Treaty of
Berlin, rather than risk the general dangers of
readjustment. Eastern Roumelia became a part of

—16—

Bulgaria and the territorial limits of the Bulgarian
principality so remained, as thus established, until
again disturbed by the Turko-Balkan War.

Following this successful accomplishment of
Prince Alexander, Russian intrigues resulted In his
abdication. Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg then
accepted an invitation to the Bulgarian throne.
About this time the Bulgars, as well as the Serbs,
seriously and studiously renewed their active and
forceful protest against the Turkish administra-
tion in Macedonia, through well organized and gen-
erally supported societies which were called "com-
mittees,*' with agents known as "comitajies.'*
These comitajies sought to avenge the wrongs of
their brothers in Macedonia, who still bore the gall-
ing weight of the Turkish yoke, and they also hoped
to create such a disturbance as to induce the Christian
world to release the Macedonian Christians from
Moslem oppression. These Servian and Bulgarian
comitajies, as agents of retaliation and discord, were
*' patriots '* to their own race, either in or out of
Macedonia, although they were ''brigands'' to the
Turks. It was one of these Bulgarian comitajies,
operating in Macedonia, who through his adventurous
enterprise in holding for ransom our own Miss Stone,
embarrassed the Turkish government into an ac-
knowledgment of its helplessness to suppress such
depredations, and held up the American missionary-
supporting public for 13,000 pounds of Turkish gold,
or about 59,000 American dollars. I saw this enter-
prising financier — Sandansky, by name — in Sofia at
the time the National Assembly there granted him
amnesty. I also learned the details of the money
transaction from Mr. Peet, the manager of American
missions in Constantinople, who counted out the
Turkish gold to the *' patriot-brigand" in a Mace-
donian village while under the surveillance of an

—17--

escort of a squadron of Turkish cavalry, charged
with the duty of preventing the American ransom
from passing into the comitajie's hands. A personal
friend of Sandansky, whom I knew well in Sofia,
assured me that Sandansky had not applied to his
personal advantage a cent of the American contribu-
tion, but that it had all been spent in thecause of
Macedonia.

In defense of the methods of the Macedonian
revolutionists and the Bulgarian comitajies, it may
be said that their cause could only be advanced by
violence and that their resistance was made against
a Turkish administration which every creditable
European observer has invariably pronounced as
economically abominable and personally intolerable
to any but a crushed, spiritless and hopeless people.
But the Turk's faults were in his methods of ad-
ministration more than in his natural cruelty. His
massacres and atrocities were no more than economic
expediences, which to his form of government were
necessities. The Turkish government in Europe has
never been more than that of an army of occupation,
and its subject and resentful races were disciplined
by military methods which grew harsher with in-
creased and repeated insubordination. The unhappy
conditions in Macedonia continued, as the reforms,
though always promised, were never executed, re-
gardless of the assurances of the Treaty of Berlin.
Outrages against Turkish authority were answered
by Macedonian massacres.

The "Powers of Europe'' had so long regarded
the troubles in the Balkans as within their own par-
ticular sphere for adjustment, and the Christian
inhabitants had so often appealed to this supreme
authority for relief that the powers, viewing only
their own selfish interests, seemed to overlook the
possibility of the Balkan States themselves under-

—18—

taking the solution of that part of the Eastern
Question which they had come to conclude was their
own immediate concern. This very situation arose
when Bulgaria, Servia, Greece and Montenegro
entered into an alliance in 1911 to make a common
cause against the Turk and settle by force of arms
the grievances which 400 years of Eastern inter-
ference had failed to assuage. The chancelleries of
Europe were all the while, secretly at least, advised
of the progress of this project, but being unable to
trust any one of their own number to exercise police
authority or guarantee protection, the Balkan States
were simply admonished that whatever they started,
the powers would see that their disturbances did not
result in territorial rearrangement.

Just a little while before, however, the attention
of Europe was drawn to the Ottoman Empire by an
event that created the favorable season for the Allies
to settle with the Turks their long standing grudge.
This was the breaking out of the Constitution, for
Turkey had long since shown a tendency to catch the
Constitution, which seemed to erupt on the exposed
portion of her body in the form of a transitory rash
and which tended to act as a sort 6f vaccination
against any of the more serious contagious diseases
which so often threatened her dissolution. Turkey
first caught the Constitution in the beginning of the
reign of Abdul Hamid, just before the Russo-Turkish
War, when Russia was pressing the Porte for some
atonement for the Macedonian massacres of that
time. Then the crafty Sultan turned to the Con-
stitution as a means of escape from Russian chastise-
ment. The personal liberty and other things guar-
anteed by a Constitution, the Sultan argued, ought
to be sufficient answer to Russian claims.

But as the war actually came on and the Con-
stitution had no further purpose to serve, it was

—19—

withdrawn to await thirty years for a recrudescence.
This second attack came, in spite of Abdul Hamid, in
the summer of 1908 when Nazi Bey, a major of
infantry and an enthusiast of the Young Turk Party
which was then well organized in the army, marched
his battalion up into the mountains of Macedonia,
beyond the railhead of Monastir, and announced
himself in arms against the Sultan. Two weeks
later at Salonika the Constitution was proclaimed by
Major Enver Bey, now Enver Pasha, Minister of
War of the Ottoman Empire and one of the three
men who, for the while at least, hold in their hands
the destiny of the empire. The Young Turks were
not quite prepared, but their revolution was precipi-
tated by an unmistakable indication of a preparation
of the powers for another interference in Macedonian
affairs. The Sultan, however, making virtue of
necessity, accepted the situation and announced the
restoration of the Constitution which had been sus-
pended since 1878. He started off by fulfilling its
provisions for a National Assembly.

This change in the Ottoman government, and its
threatened invigoration, suggested an Austrian ad-
vance on the Balkans, especially as Russia at this
time had not recovered her military strength which
was somewhat debilitated by the Manchurian war,
and, being at this time unable to defend Slavonic
interests in the Balkans, the Germanic influences
were free to operate without fear of material opposi-
tion. The psychological moment thus arrived for
Prince Ferdinand to proclaim himself *' Tzar of the
Bulgars" October 5, 1908, and, two days later, for
Austria to annex Bosnia and Herzegovnia. The Bul-
garian army was ready; the Prince had met the
Austrian Emperor at Buda-Pest only a short time
before; the Austrian army would support the Bul-
garians. The Turks were fatalistically resigned, as

—20—

they were unable to resort to arms, but the Servians
wailed bitterly, though helplessly, for the defeat of
their national aspirations to regain Bosnia and the
Herzegovnia which they regarded as their lost
provinces, because they were once a part of a Servian
kingdom of the Middle Ages. Servia was on the
point of declaring war against Austria, and Monte-
negro, always spoiling for a fight, was eager to join
her, but European diplomacy intervened, because no
great power was ready to espouse Servians cause.

The formal annexation of Bosnia and the Herze-
govnia by Austria, after the Treaty of Berlin in 1878
had specified the limited functions of Austria's
occupation of these Turkish provinces, in the words
of Prince von Buelow, the German ex-Chancellor,
*'led up to a great crisis.'' He states very frankly
that Emperor Nicholas showed his great wisdom
in his resignation to a diplomatic acceptance and that
this incident was the first test of the Austro-German
AlHance as **the German sword had been thrown
into the scale of European decision."

Turkey's bleeding wounds were soothed by an
immediate application of a financial balm in the form
of an Austrian indemnity of $5,000,000 and then she
demanded $25,000,000 from Bulgaria. At this junc-
ture Russian diplomacy played a tactful and tender
part which, in a way, wooed Bulgaria away from the
Austrian blandishments to which it had so lately
yielded. Bulgaria offered only sixteen and three
quarters millions for the twenty-five million demanded
by Turkey. Russia effected a settlement by assum-
ing the Bulgarian obligation to Turkey and accepting
from Bulgaria in small annual installments the six-
teen and three quarters millions which Bulgaria had
offered to Turkey. Russia thus satisfied Turkey's
Bulgarian claim by cancelling forty of the seventy-
four annual installments which Turkey owed to

—21—

Russia as an indemnity for the Turko-Russian War.
Turkey, in turn, was able to negotiate another
foreign loan upon the resources relieved from the
Russian mortgage and all contentions were thus
happily reconciled.

On the 19th of April, 1910, the Porte finally
recognized the independence of Bulgaria and this
peaceful passing of the last of the Sultan's vassal
states in the Balkans made identical the real and
pretended frontiers of Turkey in Europe.

The Constitution, which was restored in August,
1908, had been received throughout the Ottoman
Empire with such wild and hysterical delight that a
Bulgarian dignatory actually embraced a Greek
bishop; Turks bowed reverently to Armenian prayers
in Armenian cemeteries for the repose of the souls of
the Armenian victims of Turkish massacres; the
Bulgarian brigand Sandansky was received like a
prodigal son; a Turkish officer actually imprisoned a
Moslem for insulting a Christian and Sir Edward
Grey announced: **The Macedonian Question and
others of a similar character will entirely dis-
appear.'' Enver Bey made the beautiful and assur-
ing announcement that "arbitrary government had
disappeared. Henceforth there will be no Bulgars,
Greeks, Roumanians, Jews or Musselmen; under
the same blue sky we are all equal and we all glory
in being Ottomans."

Less than a year was passed by all Ottoman
subjects in this hysterical enjoyment of the fancied
benefits of constitutional government, as this time
was necessary for the Sultan to secure the loyalty of
the garrison of Constantinople. In April, 1909,
Abdul Hamid gave a regimental review in the hall of
the National Assembly, as a ceremony in honor of its
adjournment sine die, which he offered as a celebra-
tion of the recovery of the nation from the late

—22—

outbreak of the Constitution. Coincident with this
event was another but more tragic one in Armenia,
at Adana, in which several thousands of Armenians
and two American missionaries were massacred.
These were really the concluding functions of the
*'Red Sultan's'' long reign, for in less than two
weeks the Army Corps of Salonika, under Mahmoud
Shefket Pasha, marched to Constantinople, attacked
and subdued the Sultan's loyal garrison, hanged
forty of its officers and deposed Abdul Hamid. A
new Sultan was made by girding the sword of Osman
on Abdul Hamid's brother, who had been his brother's
prisoner and had not read a newspaper for years.
The Constitution was again proclaimed and the
counter-revolution was complete.

The Young Turk government again restored, it
was soon inspired with fatuous and fanatical dreams
of "Turkification" of the Ottoman Empire, by which
the various races and regions were to be reduced to
the dead level of Turkish uniformity, and, in-
cidentally, induced to adopt the Turkish language.
This form of pernicious activity awoke the Sultan's
non-Turkish subjects— Arabs, Albanians and Chris-
tians alike— from the hysteria with which they had
accepted the Constitution as a balm for all their woes
and gave all the Balkan Christians, both in European
Turkey and in the neighboring states, a new and
sharp incentive to forget their own differences and
unite against a constitutional tyranny more de-
structive to their hopes and aspirations than any-
thing that had been conceived in the darkest days of
the Hamidean reign.

The Young Turks were soon awakened from
their wild ideaHsm by the following disturbances:
(1) Bulgarian protests against Moslem immigration
from Bosnia into Macedonia; (2) renewed activities of
Macedonian revolutionists and comitajies; (3) the

—23—

murder of a Greek bishop; (4) protests and threats
from Crete; (5) a revolution of Moslems in Albania;
(6) the appearance of a new Madhi in the Yamen;
and (7) the Italian war.

The prophecy of an European ambassador (Neli-
doff ) that surely twenty months of the Young Turks
would be worse for Turkey than twenty years of
Abdul Hamid seemed to come true. This reactionary
policy laid the way for the Balkan League, which
was founded on the suggestion and with the aid of |
an Englishman — a Mr. Bourchier, the Sofia cor-
respondent of the London Times and one of those
accompHshed Britishers who spend their lives in
voluntary exile among a people whose affairs and
language they learn and whose councillors or advisors
they become. He first brought about an agreement
between Bulgaria and Servia, and then Greece and
Montenegro were eager to join.

A little incident in connection with the forma-
tion of the Balkan League may not be without
interest in relation to some recent accusations against
monarchs in leading their people into war. The
Servian minister in Constantinople was calling on an
ambassador to the Sublime Porte at the time when
rumors of the preparation of the Balkan States to
make war on Turkey were passing. The ambassador
asked the minister if he (the minister) did not think
it possible that some European diplomacy might
influence his King to withdraw from the Balkan
League. 5The minister replied rather significantly,
''In Servia we kill kings.''

General Savoff had completed the reorganization
of the Bulgarian army. A French military commis-
sion had done much for the Greek army, and English
naval officers had tuned up the Greek navy. The
Bulgars, too, were well advised as to the actual
progress made in the German reorganization in the

—24—

Turkish army. As a vassal state Bulgaria could
only maintain a commercial agency in Constantinople
which did not include a military attache, I met in
Bulgaria an officer who had been rated as a clerk in
the Bulgarian agency in Constantinople. He was
selected for this service because of his knowledge of
English, and, while he did not enjoy the social status
of a military attache, he was able to discharge such
duties, through his confidential relations with the
British military attache who gave him all the material
that was sent to the British War Office.

The Balkan League did not long await an occasion
to present its demands to Turkey, for in August,
1912, the signs of the coming storm were so plain to
diplomatic meterologists that they definitely fore-
casted ''unsettled,'' ''threatening,'' and then
"stormy weather" in the Balkans. About this time
the comitajies set off a bomb among some Moslem
officials in the little town of Kochina in Macedonia,
and the Turks responded promptly and reliably in
quite a spirited massacre of a considerable number
of Bulgarian and other Christian residents of the
village. This not unusual incident was repeated in
Berane and Ishtip, where Servians and Greeks were
the victims. I was in Kochina about a year after
these incidents and just after the close of the second
Balkan War, when the Servians were finally in con-
trol, although the Bulgars had taken the town first
from the Turks and had alternated, several times
after then, its occupation with the Servians. The
quiet little village has a most attractive site at the
foot of a mountain valley from which a clear, cool
stream tumbles past several primitive mill sites and
the usually pleasantly disposed cafes and furnishes
that characteristic feature of "good water" of most
every Macedonian community. The town bore
numerous and unmistakable scars of the bitter strife

—26—

that had been so recently waged in the alternating
supremacy of hereditary enemies.

Map. Of
South Eastern Europe

1912

Army Service Schools

t?

" """ I

There is a conventional sign of a prejudice
recently expressed by the Moslem against the Chris-
tian group, or vice versa, in any Turkish village. It
is seen in the quarter last to be disciplined, in the
suggestive absence in all dwellings of doors, windows
and sometimes roofs, and all easily removable and
usable pieces of lumber. This despoilation not only
gives a very uninhabitable character and appearance

—26—

to the places of abode, but also stimulates quite a
visible building boom in the dominating portion of
the village.

These latest Macedonian outrages gave the
Balkan Allies splendid occasion to deliver on October
14, 1912, to the Sublime Porte an ultimatum, which
they knew would be rejected, although they were
able to base it on the high and just grounds of a
demand for the immediate enforcement of the 23d
Article of the Treaty of Berlin, guaranteeing Mace-
donian reforms, which the Ottoman government for
thirty-four years had entirely failed to respect. This
ultimatum was just like that more recent one that
marked the beginning of a greater war. A demand
was made on a government which the government
could not force the people to accept. The Porte
answered with characteristic insolence by the seizure
of forty-five Creusot guns, then en route through
Constantinople to Servia, and by the detention of all
Greek shipping in the Bosphorus. Bulgaria then
became a bit peevish and expressed some annoyance
at the so-called Turkish "maneuvers'' in Thrace,
although Bulgaria had not overlooked her own mili-
tary preparations, which had been continued from
the time of her maneuver mobilization in August.
All of this diplomatic conversation was held in the
first weeks of October, and I passed over the Oriental
Railway from Sofia, through Adrianople, to Con-
stantinople in September when the sidings at every
station were filled with military trains carrying
forage, stores, horses, wagons and field guns so new
that their bright, fair leather muzzle caps showed
the first few greasy finger-prints. Everything
seemed to be moving toward the Turkish frontier.
Every culvert and bridge on the line had a guard of
a few soldiers with their shelter tents pitched nearby.
Maybe Bulgaria was not mobilizing, but at any rate

—27—

she was moving a few hundred thousand men with
rifles and munitions of war to her eastern frontier,
by which timely providence she was able to complete
her mobilization with the wonderful rapidity that
startled Europe and enabled the Bulgarian army to
cross the Turkish frontier one day after the declara-
tion of war.

The powers, though concerned only with their
own larger interests in near Eastern affairs, became
greatly alarmed at the military activity of the rude
little Balkan States and gravely admonished all con-
cerned that the powers would prevent, in case of
conflict, any modification of the territoral statu quo.
In the course of these diplomatic conversations, little
Montenegro, on October the 8th, became impatient
and fired the first shot at the great and invincible
Ottoman Empire, and the world was amused if not
amazed.

On October the 17th, Turkey declared war on
Bulgaria and Servia; the next day Greece declared
war on Turkey; and so in answer to the question
*'Who started it?'' the measure of responsibility can
be equally divided.

On the following day, October 18th, a Bulgarian
army crossed the Turkish frontier to attack Adrian-
ople, and in the next two days two more Bulgarian
armies had crossed the northern border of Thrace
and started south for Kirk Kilisse. In about a week
after the first contact, the Turkish army was in a
confused and disorderly mass, in mad flight towards
the Chatalja lines, thirty miles west of Constantinople,
where Nazim Pasha, the Turkish generalissimo, was
able to reorganize and intrench his frightened mob
so as to repulse the Bulgarian attack which was made
two weeks later.

In the meantime, the Servian main army started
down the Valley of Morava, while one corps passed

—28—

through western Bulgaria to cross into Macedonia.
At Komanovo, on October 24th, near the field of
Kossovo, where the Turks had vanquished the Serbs
500 years before, the Servian army gained a decisive
victory in a three days' battle. Less than a year
later I was on the field of Komanovo with two mili-
tary attacheSy and I give it as their opinion, rather
than my own, that it possessed the physical features
that should provide a sense of tactical delight for
either attack or defense as well as that splendid
avenue for retirement— of which the Turks were
glad to enjoy the benefits. It surely seemed to both
the Bulgars and the Serbs that the victories over the
Turks were not only the result of superior arms, but
a divine answer, though somewhat delayed, to their
Christian prayers of centuries for deliverance from
their Moslem masters.

The Bulgars marched to a battle song, not lack-
ing in many of the qualities of the ''Marsellaise,''
with its refrain, "On to the Maritza,'' which they
sang as they went out to avenge their defeat on the
banks of that river centuries before, and it was on
this same Maritza, at Adrianople, that their prayers
were answered.

The Serbs, in their battle hymn, had sung "Re-
member Kossovo'' as they marched against their
ancient enemy to meet him so nearly on the field of
Kossovo that they could regard his utter defeat as
none other than providential.

And so it is httle wonder that these hereditary
enemies of the Turks marched and fought with a fire
and frenzy which gave them strength, endurance
and impetus that might have vanquished even better
soldiers than the Turks. After Komanovo, the
Servians, like the Greeks at Salonika, were invited
to enter Uskub, which they at once rechristened
"Skoplje," as this was its name when capital of

—29-

their ancient empire. Then, after an engagement
that could be called a battle, at Monastir, the Serbs
completed the conquest of their portion of Macedonia.
The Greeks crossed their frontier in two columns,
one into Epirus and the other into southern Mace-
donia. They invested and laid siege to Janina, near
their own frontier, and then, hurrying on in a mad
rush to beat the Bulgars to Salonika, arrived No-
vember the 18th, just as a Bulgarian division appeared
before another quarter of that city. On November
10th, or two days after the arrival of the Bulgarians,
the Turkish commander surrendered to the army of
the Greek Crown Prince, who refused to share the
honors with the rival forces. The Bulgarian troops
entered the eastern part of the city by their own
leave, very much to the irritation of the Greeks, who
stopped short, for the time, of using arms to drive
them away. The Bulgarian division was reduced to a
battalion during the course of the first war, and the
force was at this strength when the second war
began.

The Montenegrins, in their comic opera splendor
and with ferocious valor, had fought their way to-
wards Scutari, the Turkish stronghold that not only
resisted the longest but still more tragically, was to
be denied them finally through the intervention of
European politics. The British military observer,
who was with the Montenegrin army throughout
their campaign, told me that these unconquerable
mountaineers fought with a courage that was abso-
lutely fearless as individuals, but with tactics that
were entirely ridiculous as soldiers.

So it was that in four weeks after the first en-
gagement of the Turkish army with the enemy, all
that was left of the Ottoman Empire in Europe,
except for the beleagured and hopeless cities of
Adrianople, Janina and Scutari, and the Peninsula of

—30—

Gallipoli, which forms the western littoral of the
Dardenelles, was the very tip of the Balkan Pen-
insula extending twenty miles from Constantinople.
An armistice was declared between Turkey and all
the Allies except Greece, who continued her hostihties
during the following two months of suspended hos-
tilities.

The Ottoman government at this time was in the
hands of a party which had shortly before deposed
the Young Turks. The most palpable defeat of
Turkish arms could no longer be denied, and on
November 29th, the ambassadors in Constantinople
were requested by the Turkish government to inter-
cede for peace. Nazim Pasha and General Savoff
met between their lines on December 3d, and an
armistice was signed between Turkey and all the
Allies except Greece.

A conference was held shortly after in London,
and on January 22, 1913, after much wrangling, the
Turkish government agreed to accept the conditions
demanded by the Allies. On the following day,
while the Grand Council, in session at the Sublime
Porte, was drafting the document of acceptance,
Enver Bey and Tallat Bey, with a street crowd of
not more than fifty partisans, entered the council
chamber, murdered Nazim Pasha, the Minister of
War, and forced the resignations of the Grand Vizier
and Cabinet. Perhaps this event was more of a
coup d'etat than a revolution, but whatever it may
be called, there was no public manifestation of con-
cern and but Httle evidence of the overthrow to be
seen in the street. The Young Turks with Mahmoud
Shefket Pasha would not commit the sacrilege, as
they said, of ceding besieged Adrianople and the
''tombs of the Sultans,'' notwithstanding the fact
that none are buried there, nor could they sully the
glory of the empire by sacrificing the ^gean and

—Si-
Mediterranean islands, which had already been lost
in war.

On February 3d, the armistice was denounced
and war was renewed. There was no rational hope
of relieving Adrianople, for the Bulgars were at least
as secure on the west of the Chatalja line as the
Turks had been on the east. Early in March, 1913,
Enver Bey personally conducted a pathetic and frantic
expedition from Constantinople with the purpose of
landing on the north shore of the Marmora at
Rodosto to take the Bulgars at Chatalja in the rear
and to relieve Adrianople. The effort failed in its
beginning with unorganized troops without rations,
suitable transport or landing facilities.

I saw the daily progress of the preparation as
made in Constantinople. The only seaworthy trans-
port in the fleet was tied up at the dock adjoining
the great floating bridge across the Golden Horn.
The decks were crowded for several days with sol-
diers arranged in the same order that exists on a
Coney Island boat on the Fourth of July, and these
troops almost starved before the transport put to
sea. The other craft in the fleet were of the New
York ferry boat variety, equipped for shore water
supply, and they were almost ruined by being
kept at sea for two weeks with salt water in their
boilers. A German doctor, who accompanied Enver
Bey personally, and who saw the landing operations
from the pilot house of the "flag ship,'' told me that
only one battalion were able to get ashore and they
were soon driven back to the beach by the Bulgarian
batteries on the hills above the town. This is an
incident of the frantic but misguided energy of
which the desperate and fatalistic Turk is capable at
times.

After this last gasp of Turkish arms, there was
no other important event in the Eastern theater until

—32—

the fall of Adrianople on March 26, 1913. The
fortress of Janina had fallen to the Greeks on March
6, 1913. The Servians had gone to the aid of the
Montenegrins, who were still struggling before
Scutari, and the last vestige of hope for the only
remaining Turkish outpost in Europe thus passed.
Hostilities for the second time were suspended on
the Chatalja lines.

With the fall of Scutari, April 23d, the mailed
fist of Europe appeared once more in Balkan affairs.
Austria, stinging from the wound that Servia and
Montenegro had given her parental pride by their
forcible adoption of her cherished child in their joint
occupation of the Sanjac of Novi Bazar, turned
frantically for maternal solace to Albania, as the
product of a violent and vicarious accouchement force,
and wildly warned the world that not a hand should
be lifted against the waif. Scutari was the head of
Albania and Austria would not permit the savage
Montenegrins to bite it off. This cannibal act was
prevented by th-e rattling of European sabers, which
restored Scutari to Albania and left the Montenegrins
again smarting under Austria's wrongs. Here in
this remote and obscure corner of the Balkans, after
the local conflagration had passed, lay the still burn-
ing embers which so soon spread into the tinder box
of Europe. On May 21st, the second peace conference
assembled in London. On May 30th, peace prelimi-
naries were signed with the delimitation of the
Turkish frontier on a line running from Enos on the
iEgean to Media on the Black Sea. The Bulgarians
had been in undisputed possession of the western
littoral of the Marmora, except the Peninsula of
Gallipoli which formed the eastern shores of the
Dardenelles, but the interest of Europe demanded
the removal westward of the Bulgarian frontier to

—33—

leave in the custody of the Turks the great highway
from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

In this war thus closed, the most interesting and
important feature was the Bulgarian campaign in
Thrace where the Turkish Army of the East was so
quickly and decisively defeated. Whatever the
other Allies accomplished, in the defeat of the
Turkish Army of the West, is only incidental to
the Bulgarian success in the east, without which
the other Allies could not have brought their cam-
paigns to so definite an issue. The Greeks con-
tributed a very important part by keeping the Turkish
fleet in the Dardenelles and preventing the transport
of Turkish troops by sea, and the Servians brought
an important support to the investment and final
reduction of Adrianople; but for all this, Bulgaria
had the brunt of the hardest battles and endured the
stress of the longer campaign.

Second Lecture

The Campaign in Thrace

WHAT little I know in a general way of the
campaign in Thrace I shall relate in the form
of a story of a visit I was permitted to make to
Adrianople and to the battlefields and terrain of the
rout of the grande armee of the Ottoman Empire
just one year after that event had passed into history.
The details of the strategy and tactics of the cam-
paign may be found in the very complete report of
the German General Staff. Mahmoud Moukhtar
Pasha, who commanded the 3d Corps of the Turkish
Army of the East, has written an apologetic narrative
of about the same import in which he defends his
own tactical efforts and professional capacity. I had
with me Mahmoud Moukhtar' s report and the
Austrian General Staff maps from which it was not
difficult to locate any of the positions. I arrived in
Adrianople with letters from Tallat Bey, the triumvir
Minister of Interior of the Ottoman Empire, to the
Civil Governor, and from Izzet Pasha, the Minister
of War to the Commandant de Place. These letters
conveyed in true Oriental form an acknowledgment
of obligation for my moral and material support,
which had done so much to sustain the empire in
an hour of peril, and instructions to all civil and mili-
tary authorities to make such signs of appreciation
as might seem appropriate and discreet. The
courteous and distinguished commandant, Mahmet

34

—35—

Ali Pasha, told me that I had shown commendable
zeal in paying him the distinction of a visit to his
command because any city, if it were the birthplace
of a great man, the place of signature of a great
treaty, or a scene of defense against a great siege,
might well become a shrine.

During the course of my reception, a tall, sol-
dierly officer attracted my attention as he cracked
his heels before his chief, with whom he exchanged
a few formal words. After the officer had retired,
the Pasha asked me if I had noticed him and if I
knew who he was. I could assure his excellency
that I had not failed to observe his visitor, but that
I was deeply humiliated by my ignorance of his
identity. The Pasha then treated me to what I felt
I was expected to appreciate as a most interesting
revelation: "That officer you have just seen,'' he
said, *'is none other than the son of the great Osman
Pasha, the defender of Plevna.'' As sieges in gen-
eral, and that of Adrianople in particular had just
been under discussion, it seemed quite appropriate
to have thus awakened the memory of one of the
Ottoman Empire's most distinguished soldiers, who
had won his fame in one of the great defensive
operations, upon which the later military glory of
the Turks seems to have rested.

On the following morning the Pasha sent his
best automobile and his favorite aide de camp for a
daylight start on a tour of inspection of both the
offensive and defensive positions concerned with
the siege. We went first to the southwest sector
at Kartal Tepe, a height from which the city and
many positions can be viewed and which was the
scene of the first desperate and successful strug-
gles in the course of the Bulgarian investment in an
effort to secure the observation station. The morn-
ing was hazy and damp; the automobile was left on

—36—

a road. We reached on foot the summit of Kartal
Tepe just as a heavy fog fell which not only veiled
the anticipated panorama, but entirely defeated, for
more than a hour, all the strategy and tactics of our
party in a reconnaissance fired in an heroic endeavor
to locate the position of our transportation. Had it
not been for the exercise of some considerable force,
if not skill, in the art of vocal signalling, our units
would have been so hopelessly separated that rescue
could have been effected only by the noonday sun.
While enduring the failure of our line of communica-
tion and waiting for the fog to raise we may turn to
some conditions that are of interest in relation to the
siege of Adrianople.

The city rests in a depression surrounded by a

Contour Interval 40 Meters

TURKS, Black. BULGARS.BIue.

Army Service Schools

—37—

ring of hills which form a natural defense, except on
the southwest, where the ridge is broken by the
broad Valley of the Arda. To the northeast, the
slopes are gradual towards the town, but drop away
more abruptly to the front. It requires no great
military sagacity for an observer to appreciate the
natural elements of defense in this quarter which is
of particular interest as it is the site of the assault
which terminated the siege. Three confluent rivers
(Arda, Maritza and Tunga) within the fortified area
provide important strategical elements. The domi-
nating architectural feature is the Mosque of Sultan
Selim, said by many critics to be the most perfect
Turkish mosque, with its four tall minarets visible
a dozen miles in every direction, and, on a clear day,
from the environs of Kirk Kilisse, thirty-five or forty
miles away. On the other hand, as the minarets
commanded a far view of surrounding country, they
were used as observation stations during the siege.
In peace times the civil population of Adrianople
was about 80,000, but, by the influx from surround-
ing villages, it must have increased to 100,000 during
the siege. Among the inhabitants there were more
Turks than Christians, with the Bulgarians predomi-
nating among the latter.

The strategic value of Adrianople has always
been appreciated and it has been frequently spoken
of as the **Key to Constantinople.'^ Its natural ad-
vantages have not been developed by the construc-
tion of roads in Thrace, although the value of its
position as a base or pivot for operations against the
Bulgarian frontier was recognized.

The railway from Sofia to Constantinople runs
two miles south of the city through the station village
of Karagach. There are only a few scattered trees
in or out of Adrianople, except on that island in the
Tunga, known in the turcophile romance of Pierre

—38—

Loti as **The Isle of Anguish. '^ Adrianople had been
fortified in some way since it first became the
European capital of the Turks in 1363. Plans for its
defensive rehabilitation, directed by Von der Goltz
Pasha prior to 1896, were never entirely or perfectly
executed. The works, all more or less remodeled
ancient structures, consisted of thirty permanent re-
doubts not at all well concealed, protected by a com-
plete circle of wire entanglements constructed a very
short time before the war. The perimeter of the
line of fortification is about thirty miles with axes
varying from eight to ten miles. I think it has been
generally conceded that Adrianople at the time of
the siege was not a modern fortress, although the
the work began under German direction, especially
in the northwest sector— which might have been
finished in several years— would have added con-
siderable strength. Communication was not very
good, because of a failure to provide sufficient bridges
for the movement of troops over the several un-
fordable streams within the fortress area. The
British military consul, who was in the siege and had
been stationed at Adrianople for four or five years
prior to the event, told me that the Turks had no
good working maps of the fortress and that the only
reliable and complete ones were to be found in Sofia
and London. The British Military Consular Service
is a 'Peculiar hybrid diplomatic institution, but it
serves quite effectually the ends of the British War
Office in gaining military information in the remotest
quarters of the world where the interests of the
empire are vested, by assigning army officers to
consular stations where, although they are known
to be military officers, all the nominal and apparent
duties are diplomatic and civil. I understand, how-
ever, that there is no regulation which prevents an
officer on such duty from working overtime or at

—so-
night in a purely professional way. To the pro-
fessional industry of the incurhbent of the office in
Adrianople, at the time of which I speak, I have
reason to believe, is due the satifactory military
information on Adrianople which the British War
Office possessed.

Shukri Pasha, a general of artillery, who com-
manded the artillery in Thrace, was in command
during the siege. The garrison in time of peace was
an army corps of about 25,000 men, but at the time
of the siege it has been estimated at from 50,000 to
55,000 men. But as the Bulgarians reported 60,000
military prisoners at the time of the capitulation,
and as the losses probably were at least 15,000, the
garrison must have been at least 75,000. The dis-
crepancy in numbers is probably due to the many
impressed Christians gathered from the surrounding
villages. The investing force, before the armistice
and when the fortress was only blockaded, was about
80,000, including two Servian army corps. After
the armistice, when it was determined to take the
fortress by assault, the besieging army consisted of
105,000 Bulgarians with 342 guns and 47,000 Servians
with 98 guns, a total of 152.000 men with 440 guns.
One observer remarks: ''The garrison was large,
but badly trained; the artillery was strong, but badly
sited, and at the head was a man irresolute and weak
in character.''

It is said that for fifteen years General Fitcheff,
the Bulgarian chief of staff during the war, devoted
himself entirely to the preparation for the attack of
Adrianople. On the study and secret reconnaissance
of officers and agents in the preparation of a military
map of Adrianople, the Bulgarians spent annually
from $10,000 to $12,000 for a number of years. The
work was finished in July, 1911— just a little over a
year before the war. It was complete and accurate

—40—

up to that date, but it failed to show the most
recently constructed positions and the barbed wire
entanglements. Correct information on this de-
tail had been submitted by agents, but it was not
accepted as rehable because the locations seemed so
absurd. The Turkish officer in charge of the con-
struction of these obstacles, when the responsibility
for this practical joke on the Bulgarian War Office
was being passed around, explained that the wire
was put up by soldiers during his absence and with-
out his direction.

The attack on Adrianople was provided for in
the mobilization and concentration of the three field
armies with which Bulgaria organized for the
Thracian campaign. The First Army was disposed
for an attack on the center of the Turkish front
extending from Kirk Kilisse to Adrianople. The
Third Army was prepared for a descent from the
north on the Turkish right at Kirk Kilisse. The
Second Army was formed for a direct attack on
Adrianople and was placed near Mustapha Pasha,
the Turkish frontier station from which the railway
and highway lines lead directly to Adrianople. This
entire arrangement was not consistent with the
Turkish understanding of Bulgarian strategy, for the
Turks had been told by Von der Goltz, in words often
quoted, that Kirk Kilisse was * ' so strong that only a
Prussian army could capture it and then only after a
three months' siege.** Subsequent events, however,
seem to have shown that even a German general can
be mistaken, if, indeed, he were not joking or trying
to intimidate the Bulgarians. It was considered by
the Turks impracticable for the Bulgarians to ad-
vance in force from the north on Kirk Kilisse over
the very rough and roadless country that intervened,
and, expecting the Bulgarians to attempt to turn
their left flank by way of Demotika, thirty miles

—41—

south of Adrianople on the Salonika railway, the
Turks laid great stress on the defense of Adrianople.

In the first phase of the war, before the armistice,
the Second Bulgarian Army accomplished its task of
investing Adrianople with the aid of two Servian
divisions, which arrived November 12th, soon after
the battle of Komanovo, in which the Servians de-
feated the main Turkish army in Macedonia. At
this time Adrianople was not much more than
blockaded and it was not until after hostilities were
resumed that it was definitely and resolutely de-
termined to take the fortress by assault. Bombard-
ment was first begun on November 25th, Kartal Tepe
was taken, as it was required for an observation
station and attacks were frequently made to develop
the strength of defensive positions. Artillery fire
was continued from time to time with the object of
rendering residence in the city undesirable, but no
general assault was attempted during the first phase
of the war.

In the possession of Adrianople the enemy im-
posed upon the Bulgarian operations a great em-
barassment by the interruption of rail communication
from Sofia to Chatalja. The railway line ran for
several miles within the fortress area, where it also
crossed the Arda on a bridge of some proportion and
of great importance. This break in the railway
necessitated a detour of thirty miles over bad roads,
from a station west of Adrianople, for ten miles along
the west bank of the Arda to SeminH, where the river
was crossed, and from there to Demotika on the
railway to Salonika.

The map prepared by the Bulgarians had marked
on it in red stars the ''strong positions'' to be occu-
pied in making the investment. This arrangement
aided materially in both the early and later stages of
the siege, as orders could be issued in simple form

—42—

for units to take definite positions. The preparations
made for the final assault were very complete and it
was fully believed by General Ivanhoif, the Bul-
garian commander, that, except for some unforseen
and almost impossible accident, the operation would
be successful. Two elements determined the sector
that was to be assaulted. First, the burden must be
borne by the Bulgars, rather than the Serbs, as the
moral right belonged to the former on account of
their greater interest; and, as it was not feasible to
make changes in the positions of the troops which
had already been relocated several times, only the
sector invested by the Bulgarians could be considered.
Second, in the Bulgarian invested sectors, the posi-
tion of the greatest natural strength was believed to
be most vulnerable on account of the bad tactical
handling of the defense and it was thought that the
greatest surprise could be effected there because the
garrison would least expect a determined attack at
that point.

These considerations determined the northeast
sector as the place of assault. An engineer ofl^icer of
high professional attainment and Russian military
education, General Vasov, was selected to conduct
the strictly ''one man*' fire control, which was de-
cided upon. Double lines of communication cables
were laid from all positions to the fire control station.
In order to conceal from the Bulgarian troops the
date selected for the attack, General Vasov was
given a fake leave order and it was widely advertised
that he would be absent for the time covering the
period for which the attack was set.

At 1:00 p.m., March 23, 1913, the artillery
preparation was commenced on all sides except the
northeast sector, where the heavy guns were not
fired in order to mislead the fortress garrison. The
final objective was to be the three forts in the

—43—

northeast sector— Tash Tabija, Avas Baba and Aiji-
Yolu. The artillery fire was continued with full
force until 8:00 p.m., when under cover of darkness
the infantry advance began. Some artillery fire
continued all night. In the darkness two divisions
of infantry advanced on the east and the reenforced
56th Regiment advanced on the north until each met
the Turkish infantry fire at about 800 yards' range.
Here the attacking infantry halted until 5:00 a.m.,
March 24th. Then the 100 heavy guns placed to the
north and east opened fire. The Turks in their
advanced position fled to their nearby forts, pursued
by the Bulgarians, until the former encountered
their own wire entanglements where they were
nearly all killed or captured by the Bulgarians.
Twenty field guns and several machine guns which
were taken were at once turned on the Turks. The
greater part of this melee had occurred in the dim
light of the early dawn.

By 7:00 a.m. the fire of the Turkish forts in the
northeast sector had been silenced, when a heavy
fog fell which gave the Turks a chance to recover
and caused the Bulgarians to suffer heavily while
digging themselves in at the foot of the hill, within
150 to 200 yards of the fort lines. In this trying
situation part of the 56th Regiment found a dead
space beneath the glacis of Avas Baba. The attack-
ing force from the east found some shelter in the
captured advanced positions, but the northern group
fared badly in the Provadiisca Valley, where they
received, at dawn, a heavy flank fire from the Tash
Tabija fort. All day long the Bulgarians were pro-
tected by their artillery fire which made most all of
the Turkish trenches untenable and reduced the
Turkish artillery response. When night came, March
24th, covered by the full strength of their artillery
fire, the Bulgarian pioneers opened passages in the

—44—

wire entanglements. The pioneers were divided into
parties of four or five, to each of which some in-
fantry from the 54th and 56th Regiments was
assigned. Along this whole front about forty pas-
sages were cut, each from four to forty yards wide
and from five to fifty yards apart. The entire front
through which these openings were made was about
one mile long. The loss due to this operation was only
about sixty men. At 2:00 p.m. the final assault was
made and the forts were entered. Shukri Pasha
could not believe that his favorite forts were the first
to fall. He had been deceived, also, by the vigorous
demonstrations on the south sector, to which he had
ordered all of his reserves. The fort Aiji Yolu was
entered some little time before Avas Baba, but with
no resistance to the final charge by the fleeing Turks.
Other positions were not taken by assault, but sur-
rendered from necessity as they were defenseless
against attack from the rear.

The losses in the besieging armies in the final
operations has been given as follows:

KILLED

WOUNDED

Bulgarians
Servians

Officers Men
24 1274

6 268

Officers Men

82 6573

7 1166

Total 30 1542 89 ^ 7739

In the final siege the Bulgarians lost 8.5 per cent
and the Servians 4.5 per cent of their troops engaged.
The total casualties were 9,300 or about 6 per cent.
Including all, the losses arising during the entire four
months of the siege, the casualty rate was hardly
greater than 10 per cent. The Turkish losses during
the siege as estimated by the Bulgarians were about
15,000 killed and wounded, or about 20 per cent, as
the prisoners numbered 60,000 men and 2,000 officers.

The Turkish medical officer in command of the mil-

—45—

itary hospital at Adrianople, the time of my visit, told
me substantially the same. He said that a garrison of
about 60,000 men had surrendered. Ten thousand
wounded had been admitted to the hospitals with but
a small mortality -2 per cent to 5 per cent. Two
thousand were killed and there were thirty cases of
cholera. There were two hospitals: one, the regular
military hospital of the garrison adjoining the bar-
racks near the town; the other, an Ottoman Red
Crescent hospital at Karagach, near the railway
station. There were no foreign Red Cross missions
in Adrianople during the siege. The comparatively
slight cost paid by the attacking forces and the
heavy losses of the defenders seem to be due to the
efficient plan and execution of the assault, to the
tactical errors in the conduct of the defense, and to
the technical faults in the construction of the fortress.

The Scene of the Assault

The fog which covered Kartal Tepe and veiled
the panorama of the fortress of Adrianople, which
we had hoped to view, left nothing to be seen except
the ground beneath our feet, which showed the
enormous amount of digging that had been done to
provide, first for the Turks and afterwards for the
Bulgars, shelter for the living and graves for the
dead. The dogs of that yellow cur variety— so
closely akin to the coyote— had already opened many
of the graves and spread about the bleached evi-
dences of the passed struggle for this position. A
particularly fine specimen showing the effect of a
gunshot wound, which I carried away from Kartal
Tepe and preserved for a long time, has finally
slipped out of my possession — by the accidents of
travel, I believe, rather than by the cupidity of man.

The automobile finally recovered, the reestab-

lished line of communication enabled us to reach the
northeast front where the greatest interest lay about
the fort Avas Baba, which the Bulgarians carried by-
direct assault. The commandant's aide tried in vain
to induce a sentry who guarded the sally-port to
admit us to the interior of this somewhat delapidated
structure. There was no magic or open sesame in
the name or "by the order'' of the commanding
general, for the soldier insisted that his own military
acquaintance did not extend beyond his immediate
and personal commanding officer, who, though in-
definitely absent, had left him with instructions to
admit no one— under the penalty of having his eyes
gouged out or being subjected to some other and
more terribly devastating form of mutilation. In-
spection was limited, therefore, to the surroundings
of this position which at that time— more than a
year after the siege operations— appeared as though
some great hog had rooted it full of waist-deep
craters. The barbed wire entanglements still
stretched about the foot of the glacis with suggestive
gaps at frequent intervals, but with no signs of de-
struction by artillery projectiles. The aide very
politely recalled an order which strictly forbade the
use of a camera, but while his attention was diverted
by my companion, a few harmless exposures were
made.

There was one characteristically Turkish in-
dication of recent military activity, seen in the
almost completed work of regrading the glacis, so as
to remove the dead space that had sheltered the
Bulgarians in their assault, and on which, no doubt,
complacent and comforting Oriental resignation had
placed the whole tangible responsibility for the fall
of Adrianople. The aide told me that the shrapnel
fire was so destructive that *'only dead men could
live*' in the infantry trenches about the fort, and,

—47—
after several regiments had been almost destroyed
and driven out, it was found impossible to induce
soldiers to return to them. There had been much
rifle fire both going and coming about the wire en-
tanglements as most every one of the angle-iron
standards had one or more bullet holes flanged on
either side, indicating a heavy fire in both directions.
The trenches on the bank of the little stream about
500 yards from the foot of the bluff were much in evi-
dence, and it was said that the greatest Bulgarian
casualties occurred here where the right flank was
exposed to the enfilading machine gun fire from Fort
Tash-Tabija, which killed every man in the right
sector. It is quite likely that the husky Bulgarian
soldier, in digging himself in under these inspiring
conditions, made a world's record on hasty intrench-
ments that, probably, will not soon be broken.

From Avas Baba and the crescent ridge of the
northeast sector we motored to Fort Hederlick, the
headquarters during the siege, of the fortress com-
mander, Shukri Pasha, which could be seen near the
opposite rim when one looked toward the southeast
across the great shallow bowl which held the city.
This position had no defensive value, as it lay behind
the crest of the second ridge. It was the site of the
radio station, by which communication with Con-
stantinople was kept up during all of the siege.
The original apparatus had been destroyed just before
the surrender, but a duplicate, an ordinary field radio
set mounted on a specially constructed wagon truck,
was then in operation. By the time we returned to
the city the afternoon had passed and there was not
time remaining for an inspection of other positions,
although I had had the opportunity of seeing the
positions from which the operations began and where
they finished -the beginning and the end of the
siege of Adrianople.

A visit was made to that island in the Tunga
where the Bulgars concentrated their prisoners im-
mediately after the capture of the city. Pierre Loti
has described the situation there (without seeing it)
as a harrowing scene of Turkish suffering and of
Bulgarian cruelty when he gave it romantic publicity
as "The Isle of Anguish/' I refer to this one in-
cident because ''atrocities in time of war'' is a
current subject and we can appreciate the difficulties
besetting the search for the truth, even when the
accusations and denials concern the several most
loudly self-acclaimed standard bearers of ** civiliza-
tion." I have seen recently in the public press the
"Isle of Anguish" incident finally settled by a quota-
tion from the Carnegie Commission's Report of the
Balkan Wars. The assertion that 1,800 prisoners
were confined on an island in the Arda (?) River and
that 200 of these died of hunger, cold and disease is
supported by the following from the Carnegie Report:

"A member of the commission visited the island. He
saw how the bark had been torn off the trees, as high as a
man could reach, by the starving prisoners. He even met on
the spot an aged Turk who had spent a week there, and said
he had himself eaten the bark. A little Turkish boy, who
looked after the cattle on the island, said that from across
the river he had seen prisoners eating the grass."

It all came about through the unwise heroism of
Shukri Pasha in his destruction of Turkish commis-
sary stores and his demolition of the railway bridge
over the Arda which interrupted communication with
the source of future Bulgarian supplies. The Bul-
garians simply segregated all Turkish prisoners on
this island in the Tunga — not the Arda— fed them
from the remaining Turkish commissary stores, and
left the sick with only that medical attention which
the Turkish medical officers might give. The British
military consul told me that this treatment of the sick
was the most atrocious thing the Bulgarians did. He

—49—

said that to his personal knowledge a fair ration was
always issued and that, too, even before the railway
communication was restored. Loti, however, pub-
lished a heartrending account of the suffering of the
Turkish prisoners who were so starved that they ate
the bark from the trees. It is true that the bark of
trees is gone, but it went for firewood rather than
food. Our Turkish carriage driver began to give us
the usual assurance that the Bulgarians starved their
prisoners into "eating the bark off the trees like
animals,'* but our companion and guide, a Heutenant
colonel in the Turkish Medical Corps, contemptuously
asked the driver if he had no sense of shame in
affronting the intelligence of his auditors by such a
monstrous assault upon verisimiltude and the truth.
This officer then assured me that no intelligent per-
son could be expected to believe the bark-eating
romance.

From Adrianople to Kirk Kilisse we made a
comfortable journey of nearly forty miles in about
eight hours. The country showed none of the tech-
nical battle scars of trenches and earthworks, but
the incidental signs of military devastation and
reprisal were painfully evident in every village in
this region, as in all other parts of Thrace. This
wretched country had known in the year, just then
passed the scourge of five, pillaging punitive armies,
which came in the following order: First, the Turks
when they advanced towards the Bulgarian frontier;
and second, when they retreated; third, the Bul-
garians when they pursued; and fourth, when they
withdrew; and fifth, when the Turks returned to
Adrianople. As the villages in Thrace are either
Christian or Moslem, each army as it passed through
a community of the opposite religious faith played
the role of foreign invaders. Many of the wretched
people we saw in the villages had returned to poke

—50—

around in the charred or crumpled remains of their
homes in a struggle to find enough material to make
shelter for the coming winter.

From Kirk Kilisse we journeyed again by car-
riage to the villages of Petra and Eskipolos, about
ten miles from the Bulgarian frontier, from where
could be seen the field of the first disaster of the
Turkish Army of the East in its initial contact with
the Bulgarians. Eskipolos marks the site of one of
the fortified cities, extending from Adrianople through
Bunar Hissar to Visa and then on to the Black Sea.
They formed a line of frontier forts of the Byzantine
Empire and are attributed to Justinian in the Seventh
Century. It seemed rather fatalistic that the
strategic position of these ancient citadels should
again mark the line of battle in a conflict which
would again change the frontier of a state, Each
one of these ancient forts surmounted an acropolis.
From the ruined citadel of Eskipolos I could see the
Bulgarian frontier and the openings of the valleys
through which the 1st and 3d Bulgarian Armies in-
vaded Thrace. We were insistently assured by the
merry villagers who flocked with us that on a clear
day we could see the minarets of the Mosque of
Sultan Selim in Adrianople. The field of the first
engagement of the Thracian campaign lay before us.

Mahmoud Moukhtar Pasha, who commanded the
3d Corps of the Turkish Army of the East, in a pub-
fished volume entitled *'My Command in the Balkan
Campaign, '^ to which I have already referred, has
thrown a few spotlights on his command which seem
to clearly illuminate the unhappy internal condition
of the whole Turkish army and to frankly reveal
some of the causes which led to its defeat. This
officer, who may be accepted as one of the most
aristocratic and distinguished of the Turkish service,
was for many years under instruction in German

—51-

military schools and the German army. His report
naturally confesses the otherwise well-known dis-
astrous results of his operations, but its greater
burden seems to be a defense of his own military
conduct and training. His high standing and pro-
fessional accomplishments may be better appreciated
when it is known that both prior to and during his
incumbency as a corps commander he was Minister
of Marine in the Turkish cabinet and that, after he
left the army on account of wounds he received at
Chatalja, he became the Ottoman ambassador in
Berlin.

Mahmoud Moukhtar Pasha joined his corps
October 17th, five days before its engagement. He
was promoted to command of the 2d Field Army
November 1, and returned to his corps when the army
was reorganized at Chatalja. In the beginning of
his report he speaks naively of the innumerable diffi-
culties which arise at the last moment in what he
calls ''bringing an organization to the height of
modern standards. ' '

"It had been the custom of corps headquarters to work
until 2:00 a.m. which naturally prevented any work at all
during the following morning. I gave positive orders at once
for everybody to abandon such habit and to commence work
at 7:00 a.m. and for clerks to begin at 5:00 a.m. From 9:00 to
12:00 officers were ordered to mount and go to the troops.
At 3:00 p.m. all officers were to assemble at headquarters, but
it was not possible to abandon the offices completely from 9:00
a.m. to 3:00 p.m."

On October 22d, one of his division commanders
made the following report concerning an incident of
a disordered retreat of the night before in the neigh-
borhood of Petra and Evikler: ''Only the men who
knew the cause of the noise remained in position.
A certain number of officers, thinking of the fortunes
of their families, left the ranks and disappeared,
and, as a good many soldiers were natives from the

—52—

surrounding towns, they, too, took advantage of the
darkness to return to their homes. ' ' (Page 38. )

Djemil Bey, then a division commander in the
3d Army Corps, but at the present time one of the
triumvirs of the Ottoman Empire and the Minister
of Marine, seemed to have been most energetic and
discerning. He reported to his chief the cause of
the rout in the retreat on Visa as follows: ''If we
have not succeeded in reorganizing the troops, the
fault is due more to the lack of instruction than to
moral force. The companies generally had only one
officer, who often did not know what to do. At the
least difficulty these officers would cross their hands,
remain inert, and, in some cases, would quit the
ranks and leave their men to get out of their awk-
ward positions without assistance, saying at the
time: 'They do not obey us.' '' (Pages 46-47.)

On October 29th, Ali Bey sent the following
report to Mahmoud Moukhtar: "When the enemy
threatened our left with two battalions, our men
yielded, crying out: 'We do not want to stay with-
out artillery support, our troops are now retreating
towards the town; nothing can stop them.' '' (Page
61.)

October 30th, Mahmoud Moukhtar Pasha pub-
lished an order which, in the following paragraphs,
reveals something of the sanitary situation: "The
wounded will be gathered by the men from the regi-
ments and then transferred to Karakal with the
means available at the time. Their transfer to Visa
will be effected afterwards, using the empty ration
and ammunition wagons.'' (Page 84.) This corps
in its first engagement, one week before, had had
six [field hospitals, and while 1 do not find it so re-
corded, I have no doubt that at this time the Bul-
garians had them. On the follwing day, October
31st, Mahmoud Moukhtar issued an order which

—53—
sought to set aright some slight deficiencies which
had arisen in his supply department:

"1. In order to assure the subsistence of your division,
organize two kitchens. Use the battalions in the neighbor-
hood of the banks of the Soghudjuk. Have a company
prepare dinner for everybody. The company commander
will report immediately to the corps commander and will then
receive orders from the chief of staff.

*'The detachment of engineers attached to the corps is
directed to procure the necessary wood and to build ovens.

"The battahon from the Denzli Division will furnish the
necessary men for transportation." (Page 91.)

Of the situation on this day, Mahmoud Moukhtar
makes the following comments:

'* Besides, the convoys were pillaged en route,
and on this account some of the troops occupying
the trenches remained without bread and water.
On account of the small number of officers it was not
possible to prevent the disorganized battalions from
abandoning their positions and going after rations/'

On November 1st, orders from the same source
were published, of which the following is a para-
graph: "As it appears necessary to provide rations
for the men who have not drawn bread, in the last
few days, two flocks of 100 sheep will be driven, one
towards the left bank of the stream, the other to-
wards Porgalikoj. To the flank guard (three bat-
talions and one battery) there will be sent hardtack
and the necessary sheep.'' (Page 101.)

On the night of October 31st, Lieutenant Colonel
Raghib made this report to Djemil Bey, his division
commander: ''Under such conditions, the detach-
ment fled to a more favorable position where they
spent the night. Two hundred men failed to answer
reveille and were counted missing, as no one knew
what had become of them. The companies had just
been formed out of irregular elements, so that no
one knew his neighbor. The Egerdu Battalion,

—54—

which fell into an ambuscade, had lost eight wounded
and two dead. My men were already crying with
hunger at the time of leaving Visa and have received
nothing to eat since then. I ask that orders be sent
me relative to their supply.'' The stern Djemil
Bey, shocked by this brutal outrage of the first com-
mandment of the art of war, but unmoved to pity by
this cry of bread, gave back this cruel stone: "If
your detachment has fallen into an ambuscade, it
shows that you have not taken the precautions pre-
scribed by Field Service Regulations. The responsi-
bility for this incident, so definitely prohibited, falls
upon the commander. Stay were you are and occupy
the important points.*' (Pages 104-105.)

On November 1st, Lieutenant Mahmed Sia
Effendi, a subordinate officer with a battery attached
to two infantry battalions, made the following report:
**At this critical moment all of the advance battalions
began to run away and no attention was paid to any
command." (Page 105.)

Mahmoud Moukhtar, after he had discovered a
very filthy condition in his camp on the Chatalja
lines, issued another sanitary order of some signifi-
cance: ' ' By reason of cholera, the intensity of which
is increasing, there will be established in each camp,
latrines of one meter in depth. These will be filled
up every other day and new ones dug. There will
be an inspection by the corps commander in person."
(Page 155.)

Communication and information was not very
good at any time. Two days after the first action
the right wing was out of communication with
Abdulla Pasha (the army commander) and all official
correspondence was addressed to Nazim Pasha, the
generalissimo and Minister of War at Tscherkesol.
Out of this situation difficulties arose, as Abdulla

—55—

decided to retreat to the bank of the Ergene, and
Nazim ordered a stand at Karach-dere.

On October 28th-29th, Nazim telegraphed Mah-
moud Moukhtar the following information:

*' Vienna newspapers announce the right wing of the
Bulgarian army at Adrianople, and its left is about to envelop
Kirk Kilisse where they expect great results.

"The correspondent of the Reichpoat informs me that the
Bulgarian revictualing is complete and that their march is
resumed. The west wing of Dimitrieff' s army is on the line
Jenikoj-Baba-Eski. The center is about Kawalki. The right
wing is advancing on Bunar Hissar -Visa- Sara j. The Bul-
garians seek to cut the Turks off from Constantinople and
terminate the campaign in one week."

This information proved substantially correct,
and, as it was received by a very roundabout way
from newspaper sources, it seems to have some bear-
ing upon the place of a newspaper correspondent
with an army.

The Turkish commanders, however, seemed to
have held the tactical aid of Providence in somewhat
higher esteem than did Napoleon, because Mahmoud
Moukhtar, in an order informing his corps of an
offensive movement, said: "With the aid of Allah
the enemy has been compelled to retreat.'' About
this time, November 1st, Mahmoud Moukhtar was
given command of the 2d Field Army and Nazim
telegraphed him: ''May Allah wish that your
offensive may be crowned with success.'' Mahmoud
Moukhtar telegraphed his acknowledgment of his
new appointment to Nazim and said: "Allah has
permitted the 3d Corps to cause the enemy to retreat
today." (Page 116.)

The history of the Thracian campaign might
almost be written in tragic incidents which marked
the conduct of the Turkish army. A story which I
heard in Bulgaria and which is given in the German
General Staff report would fittingly make the first

—56—

record. On October 18th, the day war was declared,
the 2d Bulgarian Army, concentrated on the railroad,
started by that route to march on Adrianople and
crossed the frontier about noon. In the morning of
this day the commander of the Turkish frontier
guard sent over to the Bulgarian outpost a polite
request for a few rations of bread, as the Turkish
commissary had grown so poor about then that his
men had not had much to eat for several days. The
bread was supplied, but it had hardly been expended
before the Bulgarian advance guard wandered down
the railroad track and explained their business so
definitely that the Turkish guard surrendered without
resistance.

There were a few Turkish battalions and batteries
near Mustapha Pasha, the first town on the railroad
and on the Maritza, which were so astonished at the
appearance of a large number of Bulgarians that
they hurried on to Adrianople without much discus-
sion. There was a very important bridge over the
Maritza at this point which had been prepared for
demolition, but only part of the explosive charge
was detonated. A bit of the bridge railing and a
piece of the roadbed was blown up, but was at once
repaired and did not delay the Bulgarian column at
all. Not even the telegraph line was touched, so
that the whole railroad system fell into Bulgarian
hands and enabled them to establish their base at
once beyond the Maritza River, which could have
been made a serious obstacle to their advance.

The Campaign

The general features of the Thracian campaign,
jipart from the investment of Adrianople by the 2d
Army, may be briefly sketched in the advance from
the Bulgarian frontier (October 18th) of the 1st and

—57—

3d Bulgarian Armies, with a total strength of 75,000
each, or a combined force of 150,000, which comprised
about one half of the total of 300,000 Bulgarian
fighting men then in the field.

The Turkish Army of the East, exclusive of the
garrison of Adrianople, was at this time incompletely
mobilized in two armies, with a front along the line
Adrianople— Kirk Kilisse, and a strength of from
110,000 to 120,000 men. The 1st Bulgarian Army,
marching towards the south, met the advance guard
of the 1st Turkish Army a little in advance of the
center of the line Adrianople — Kirk Kilisse (October
23d at Seliolu) in an engagement which, while not of
a general character, is said to have been one of the
fiercest incidents of the campaign, as one Bulgarian
regiment lost 250 killed and 750 wounded.

The 3d Bulgarian Army, marching as the ad-
vanced left wing to the southeast in the direction of
Kirk Kilisse, encountered with some resistance the
Turkish 2d Army, or right wing (October - 23d at
Petra and Erikler), a few miles in front of Kirk
Kilisse. During the night following these two en-
gagements, both of the Turkish forces became de-
moralized and retreated in disorder under conditions
which Mahmoud Moukhtar Pasha has described in
his report already quoted. The 3d Army passed on
to Kirk Kilisse without obstruction, as the Turks had
fled towards Luli Burgas and Visa, but it delayed at
Kirk KiHsse three days without pursuing the ad-
vantage so unexpectedly gained. The 1st Army was
not permitted to advance, as under instructions from
general headquarters it was held back between the
two other armies to await the results of their opera-
tions.

A bitter controversy has lately arisen between
General Dimitrieff, commanding the 3d Army, and
General Fitcheif, Chief of the General Staff, con-

—58—

cerning the delay in the advance of both armies
which, in the Hght of subsequent events, was fatal
to the Bulgarian prospects of a termination of the
war shortly after this time. General Dimitrieff says
that he wished to advance at once from Kirk Kilisse,
and that, after his enforced three days' delay, when
he again attacked the Turkish right in a movement
which developed into the battle of Lull Burgas, the
1st Army did not come up to his support until the
last of the three days of hard fighting.

The action about Luli Burgas, which has all the
attributes of a real battle, covered a period of five
days (October 28th to November 1st, inclusive) which,
with the development of the positions on the first
day and the retirement of the Turks on the last day,
left three days of the severe engagement. The
Turkish army made its stand on the rampart-like
slopes of the eastern bank of a creek (Karakatch-dere)
which flows from the north past Luli Burgas. The
front of twenty to twenty-five miles' length extended
between the only two roads running east and west
through Thrace; one on the south through and from
Luli Burgas towards Constantinople, and the other
on the north from Kirk Kilisse to Bunar Hissar and
Visa. These two roads limited the operations and
extreme flanks of both armies. Abdulla Pasha, the
Turkish commander (October 30th, at Saskiskny),
stood on a prehistoric mound, rising from a slightly
predominating ridge four or five miles behind the
center of his line, where other commanders in the
unnumbered wars in Thrace may just as well have
stood, and, like him, they might have viewed the
splendid spectacle of an army in desperate action
along its fifteen to twenty miles' front. But as he
was more of a privileged observer than an active
commander, all day long on the hardest fought day
of the battle, and on the day following as well, he

—59—

was entirely out of communication with his right
wing and only the coming and going of an occasional
orderly and a few staff officers gave him the appear-
ance of directing the movements of the left wing.
He had no telegraphic nor telephonic communication
with any part of the field, and, after viewing the
tragic spectacle of the defeat of the *' Grand Armee''
of the Ottoman Empire, he could only hasten to lead
his routed legions in their retreat. Only the persist-
ing patience of the Turkish soldier, even though he
found himself in the midst of disorder, to which he
is so thoroughly accustomed, could have endured the
hunger, fatigue and fright with so little tendency to
those excesses which make such situations so horrible.
Only the Turkish soldier could have maintained his
tranquility so as to permit himself to be reformed
into a new army behind the defenses of Chatalja.

It may be said for Abdulla Pasha that, as he
realized the mobilization of his army to be incomplete,
it was his plan to stand behind the upper reaches of
the river Ergene, where the railroad would have
served his line of communications better, and where
he might have gained some time in collecting his
forces. Some of his corps commanders, however,
interceded with Nazim Pasha, the Generalissimo,
who ordered the position which precipitated the
battle of Luli Burgas. In the battle of Luli Burgas
and in those incidental and preliminary engagements
in front of the Adrianople— Kirk Kilisse Hne, the
Bulgarian losses were about 20,000, and more than
90 per cent of the number were borne by the 3d
Army,

The Turkish losses have been variously reported,
but it is hardly possible that the actual numbers
can ever be known, no matter what "official''
statistics may be prepared later; a fair estimate
seems to be at least 30,000. With about 140,000

—60—

Bulgarians and 110,000 Turks participating, the
losses were at least 15 per cent and 25 per cent,
respectively.

Just a year later I made a little journey over the
Thracian battlefields, without having then any defi-
nite knowledge of their details or a prearranged
itinerary. I started out to visit the more important
points and as many as possible of the towns I had
heard of, in the course of the local gossip of the war.
I had learned the names of the scenes of a number
of engagements from my hospital patients. I went
everywhere that ordinary carriage transportation
and other facilities permitted. When my trip was
all over and I began to check up, I was surprised to
find that I had visited every scene of action of any
importance, except that of the 1st Bulgarian Army,
a Httle in advance of the line between Adrianople
and Kirk Kilisse (at Seliolu). I have since thought
that this coinidence is somewhat suggestive, as, in
the movements of the opposing armies and my subse-
quent peregrination, there was no place else to go,
and if one goes anywhere in this region in Thrace,
unless he uses an aeroplane or resorts to sapping
operations, he must follow very closely the same
route. After reaching Luli Burgas, I went out to
the villages (Saskiskny and Ahmedbey), five and
seven miles eastward, where Abdulla Pasha had
spent his three nights and where, also, he had
watchfully waited during the three days of his last
battle. From a little ridge between these villages,
and within a radius of fifteen miles, the entire field
can be viewed without intervening obstruction, as
one can readily locate the horizon positions of Luli
Burgas, Bunar Hissar, Visa, and, finally, Tchorlu,
the railroad station where Abdulla entrained and
thus formally terminated his Thracian campaign.
The country at this time could be traversed in almost

—61—

any direction by a carriage and going was generally
better across country than on any of the wretched
roads— as we have known it in Cuba and the Philip-
pines in the dry season.

During the campaign, however, the rainy season
had made any sort of going anywhere almost im-
possible, as the whole country was then virtually a
quagmire. It has been said— and a look at this
region surely seems to support the statement— that
had the weather conditions of October, 1913, pre-
vailed in October, 1912, the Bulgarian successes
would have been prompt and decisive. The rather
frequent streams which flow into the Ergene from
the north, in shallow valleys and only a few abrupt
banks, divide the surface into easy going swails
and low, rolUng hills, over which any sort of trans-
portation can be taken in any general direction when
the season is favorable. After the abandonment of
the field, the terminal phase of the campaign was
completed by the defense of the Chatalja line, which
was taken in a natural position about twenty-five
miles in front of Constantinople and which had been
further prepared years before for just such an event.
The peninsula at this point, about twenty-five miles
in width from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmora,
takes its name from a nearby town. It is further
narrowed by two bodies of water, extending in from
each coast, to about sixteen miles. A broad valley,
running north and south, except from a short dis-
tance towards the north, separates two prominent
ranges of hills and jutting-out hogbacks. The Turkish
position was on the east of this valley and the Bul-
garians on the west. The two weeks following the
battle of Luli Burgas, before the Bulgarians could
prepare their attack (November 17th-18th), gave the
Turks time enough to dig themselves in and to hold
their position. A short time after what is known as

—62—

the battle of Chatalja, as it was apparent to the
Turks that they could not assume the offensive, the
Turkish government asked for intervention which
resulted in an armistice (December 3d.) Hostilities
were again resumed and again suspended by another
armistice. (See chronological table of events, Appen-
dix.) During this latter period of inactivity, the
Bulgarians withdrew their right wing six or seven
miles along the coast of the Marmora to simplify
their difficult problem of supply, as a glance at the
map will indicate. Shortly afterwards, the Turks
advanced their left wing across the bay of Bujuk
Chelmudje, under the pretense of doing something
in a military way, although they never induced the
Bulgarians to change their lines from the position in
which they were reformed. The reorganized Turkish
10th Army Corps which formed this advanced left
flank was no doubt the result of some political in-
dication.

When I accompanied the chief surgeon of the
Chatalja army on a special sanitary inspection, he
made a special point of one visit to the 10th Army
Corps with which we spent a night at Kalalratia.
This command seemed to base its principal claim to
distinction on the presence of a young officer who was
its chief of staff, as he was none other than the then
hero-worshipped patriot and now the Ottoman Em-
pire's Man on Horseback. Although he was only a
lieutenant colonel and the chief of staff of a pasha
and general of division, commanding the 10th Army
Corps, the entire command was keenly alert in the
sense of appreciation of the supreme honor of Enver
Bey's presence. Turkish hospitality, to even a
stranger, is always impressive, not only in form but
in substance as well, when the latter observation is
economically practicable. The chief surgeon of the
10th Army Corps was particularly happy in his

—63—

opportunity to meet the special indication of enter-
taining his dignified chief, Abdul Selim Pasha, the
chief surgeon of the army and the latter's honored
guest, as the chief surgeon could support the form of
his hospitality with the real substance of a presenta-
tation to Enver Bey. "You have heard of Enver
Bey; did you know that he was here— the Chief of
Staff-and that you can see him?'' was almost my first
word of greeting.

The evening was very dull because this alluring
and glittering promise could not be fulfilled as it was
rather reluctantly revealed to me that ''Enver Bey''
—the name spoken almost with bated breath— *' was
fatigued and begged to be excused." But the new
day brought its sunshine and the fulfillment of its
promise in a reception for which the corps commander
and his headquarters was used as a setting, as Enver
Bey entered at just that time which the rules of the
drama so carefully prescribe. He appeared as a
young man of pleasing and noticeable appearance,
carefully dressed and faultlessly groomed -even
without the credits of the discount for field service
conditions. He bore himself with an air of calm but
supreme confidence, which, in the light of his boldly
romantic career, might easily be attributed to a
fanatical inspiration. His manner was formal and
martially precise, and, incidentally, his time was
short. Later in the day as we were leaving the
western shore of Bujuk Chekmudje and about to
cross the bridge, we encountered the Corps Com-
mander and his staff. The dignified old gentleman,
riding up to the Sanitary Pasha and myself, greeted
us both pleasantly, thanked us for the honor of a
distinguished visit and confided us, hopefully, to the
care of Allah. Then a clatter of hoofs, just approach-
ing, which attracted our attention, enabled us again
to gaze upon Enver Bey as he galloped by, stiffly

—64—

saluting, with an escort of soldiers vastly more pre-
tentious than that of the pasha whom we had just
left. As we took our leave of the escort from the
10th Army Corps, the chief surgeon in receiving my
thanks and appreciation of his bountifully generous
hospitality, found his greatest comfort in my ex-
pression of rapturous satisfaction in having seen
Him— Enver Bey. There can be doubt that Enver
Pasha, as the new honors of Minister of War and
Generalissimo, which he has modestly conceded to
himself now entitles him to be addressed, is a man
of vision, possessed of a courage and a nerve com-
bined with ready initiative and fanatical determina-
tions which, now that he is actually in the saddle
instead of being merely master of the ring, will very
shortly determine the destiny of the Ottoman
Empire.

It will be remembered that in the second war,
after the Roumanians had crossed the Danube and
the Bulgarians had been several weeks away from
their position on the Chatalja lines, Enver Bey, in
violation of the orders of the Generalissimo, marched
with a cavalry column to the ''capture'' of defenseless
Adrlanople, and, in this feat of recovering the first
European capital of the Osmanli Turks, he became
once more the nation's hero and the empire's un-
doubted Man of Destiny.

Third Lecture

The Second Balkan War

^T^HE Second Balkan War, much more definitely
^ than the first, was but a flash of the steel in a
minor event of the great Slavo-Teutonic contest.
The Balkan States were only playing the part that
fell incidentally to their unhappy lot in holding the
bag and washing the dirty linen of the principal
contestants.

Just a reference to an event that followed the
Berlin Treaty will suffice to establish this relation of
the greater politics of Europe to the Balkan States.
In 1881 and 1889 Austria-Hungary formally declared,
in secret treaties with Servia, that she ** would sup-
port Servia, in the event of the latter's finding a way
of extending her southern boundary, the exception
being made of the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, and that
she would aid in the extension of Servia in the
direction of the Vardar Valley.'' The perfidy of this
platitude is evident when it is recalled that the
Austrian occupation of Bosnia had solidly blocked
Servians natural extention into that Slav territory,
while the inviolability of the sacred Sanjak of Novi
Bazar had made hopeless the coalescence of Servia
and Montenegro. Austrian diplomacy thus turned
Servian ambition for extension toward Macedonia,
whose population, up to 1870, the Servians had un-
questionably conceded to be Bulgarian.

The organization of a Bulgarian National Church
in 1870, which gave formal character to the Bulgarian
65

—6Q—

communities throughout Macedonia, stimulated a
Servian national movement towards the south, after
the Austrian check was placed on extention towards
the west. In 1903 the murder of King Alexander,
which was so popularly approved in Servia though
disapproved elsewhere— especially in royal circles-
removed a dynasty, and, by releasing Servia from
the influence of Austria, gave a new impetus to a
Servian national spirit.

A Bulgarian (Liouben Karavelow) wrote in 1870:

*'The Greeks show no interest in knowing what kind of
people live in such a country as Macedonia. It is true that
they say that the country formerly belonged to the Greeks
and therefore ought to belong to them again. * * * But we
are in the Nineteenth Century and historical and canonical
rights have lost all significance. Every people, like every
individual, ought to be free, and every nation has a right to
live for itself. Thrace and Macedonia ought then to be Bul-
garian since the people who live there are Bulgarians."

It is no doubt easy for the Christian world to
appreciate the traditional emnity that existed be-
tween the Bulgarians and Turks, as it is so readily
attributable to differences in religion, but there has
been some surprise occasioned by the bitterness and
ferocity of the strife that so soon arose between the
Christian Bulgarians, Servians and Greeks, after
their common enemy, the Turk, had been eliminated.
The cause of the differences between the Bulgarians
and Servians can be dismissed in a word; it was the
result of extraneous political influences which set
these two similar and almost identical people against
one another in fratricidal war. But the Bulgar and
the Greek have been separated by a breach that
began to widen almost with the dawn of history.
The Greeks and Bulgars had been allies for only a
year, and when their common enemy had been
removed, their individual differences became more
acute on account of the jealousies aroused by the

—67—

conflict of their respective claims to territorial ex-
tensions in Macedonia.

The soldiers of the three alhed armies — counting
the Servian and Montenegrin as one— had together
fought the first war to a successful finish. They felt
they had achieved their ends and the second war
seemed to them inexplicable. If the Turks had
accepted the conditions demanded by the Allies, in
the course of the first armistice, and if the first war
had terminated, as it would have done in January,
1913, —but for a government revolution in Constanti-
nople,—it is most probable that the second war could
not have been fought, as none of the armies— always
excepting the Montenegrins— could not have been
induced at that time to fight again. It was necessary
for the Greek press to inflame their people, and for
the Bulgars to learn that their brother Servians were
about to betray them, in the violation of a sacred
treaty. The Servians had absolutely nothing to do
but stand pat, as they were in possession of and
proposed to retain that portion of Macedonia which,
by treaty, they had conceded to Bulgaria. This
treaty became more sacred to the Bulgars as a
**bond of peace'' and grew more profane to the
Serbs as a ''scrap of paper,'' while the final adjust-
ment of the first war was pending. The Greeks
have a press, but the Bulgars have not. The Greeks
are the peddlers, traders and advertisers of the
East, and they spent, most industriously, the first six
months of 1913 in proving the Bulgars to be ruthless
and inhuman savages, and inspiring the Greek sol-
dier with his mission as '*an appointed avenger of
civilization against a race which stood outside the
pale of civiHzation."

With the exception of Bulgaria, the first war was
practically over, so far as the AlHes were concerned,
at the end of 1912. The formal termination was

—68—

marked by the treaty of peace, signed in London,
June 30, 1913. In this interval of six months the
Servians and Greeks had Httle to do, except to ar-
range themselves in their conquered territory in
Northern and Southern Macedonia respectively,
while the Bulgarians, from January to June, 1913,
bore the constant burden of holding the Turk in his
place on the Chatalja line.

The question of partition of the territory wrested
from the Turk was a matter of vital concern,
especially to Bulgaria, because her allies were in
actual possession of a part of Macedonia, which
Bulgaria thought she had just right to claim. Bul-
garia's contention was based upon a treaty, duly and
solemnly signed, sealed and attested by both Bul-
garia and Servia, in which the delimitation of the
Servian and Bulgarian portions of Macedonia were
specifically defined.

This instrument, popularly known as the ''Secret
Treaty," was signed at Sofia, February 29, 1912, or
about seven months before the declaration of the
first war, but it was given to the public by a news-
paper in Paris in the spring of 1913, when the second
war was brewing. Besides the definite meandering
of a line which both parties agreed would separate
the new Servian from the new Bulgarian Macedonia,
there remained another area, confessed to be in
dispute, which was left to arbitration. As the issues
of the first war were practically settled, Bulgaria
asked Servia to evacuate that portion of Macedonia
which the secret treaty had granted to Bulgaria, but
which Servia still occupied. Servia proposed arbitra-
tion. Bulgaria was pleased and ready to arbitrate
the matter left for arbitration by the treaty. Servia
demanded arbitration of the entire matter of the
division of Macedonia, which was, in fact, a dis-
regard for the the terms of the treaty which Bulgaria

insisted was valid, and should become effective
without arbitation.

Bulgaria had conducted her campaign and had con-
tributed much the strongest force in the war against
the Turks, in confidence that the treaty would secure
her rights in Macedonia, although she knew the
fortunes of war must send the Servian army there
to take it away from the Turk. These, then, were
definite positions in the controversy. Both parties
were perfectly willing to submit something to the
arbitration of the Russian Czar, but they could not
agree upon the question to be arbitrated. It was
simply a little matter of either sacred or profane
regard for a treaty, and, at that time, the self-styled
"civilized world'' lost patience with these wild
Balkan people for fighting over as sordid thing as the
spoils of the first war. Maybe some ex post facto
process of the civilized world's international courts
will some day restore to the barbaric Balkan States
the good character of which they were despoiled by
the self-righteous judgment of a '* higher civiliza-
tion." The Russian Czar threatened to hold ** re-
sponsible "—whatever he meant by that— the state
which started a fight, and for that reason neither
Servia nor Bulgaria felt privileged to strike the first
blow. Not so, however, with Greece, for she was
without the pale of Russian influence or punishment,
and was free to indulge her petulance.

Servia urged, as her reason for not respecting
the treaty, that the conditions at that time differed
from what they were when the treaty was signed, as
Austria, through her insistence on the autonomy of
Albania, had driven her back from the Adriatic, and
had robbed Servia of that which she coveted most —
an opening to the eea.

Austria could not deprive Servia of all the fruits
of her victory. The Servian occupation of the San-

—70—

jak of Novi Bazar, in conjunction with Montenegro,
could not be disputed by Austria, in addition to
Austria's prevention of Servians occupation of Albania.
With the San jak of Novi Bazar lost, Austria was so
determined that Servian access to the sea should be
prevented by the creation of an autonomous Albania,
that in the spring of 1913 she mobilized in Bosnia
eight to ten army corps, with a strength of about
200,000 men at a cost of $84,000,000. As about one
half of this sum was expended for military stores,
which might be used again, the cost of the mobiliza-
tion was really about 40 to 50 million dollars — not a
trifling amount for Austria to spend in merely
** bluffing'' Russia. Russia was not ready, and the
game was closed for the while. Austria's hat was
in the ring, but Russia's was not ready to be tossed.
While this little incident would hardly be noticed in
America, in Europe it was the cause of great con-
cern, and for a reason more apparent to us now than
then.

This process of diplomatic settlement was favor-
able to the Teutonic interests, because it enabled
Austria to take even a better strategical position,
from which to execute the movement assigned to her
by the Germanic Alliance, which was the ultimate
advance of her eastern flank to Salonika, and the
establishment there of a naval base, from which the
^gean might be controlled and the Dardanelles
guarded against the emergence of the Slav into the
Mediterranean. Austrian interference with the
territory taken from the Turks by the Servians is,
no doubt, the crux of the situation which led to the
second war, because, if Austria had not blocked so
effectually Servia's advance to the sea, Servia would
have been so pleased with this realization of her
fondest hope that in her gratitude she would certainly
have had no thought of disregarding her treaty, and

_71—

she also might have conceded to Bulgaria the dis-
puted Macedonian area, which the secret treaty had
left for arbitration.

The long delay in the settlement of the issues
had brought Bulgaria to the rather urgent necessity
of getting some action at once, or resigning herself
to what the Servians and Greeks saw fit to offer her.
Her army was exhausted, and the peasant soldiery,
believing that they had won what they had been
fighting for, were feeling the call to their fields, in
the time of the approaching harvest.

The second war was one of most informal begin-
ning, although its course was one of great intensity.
There was no formal declaration, and as the first
war ended formally June 30th, after a long delay
following the actual cessation of actual hostilities,
the Allies had had time to array themselves in de-
fense of their respective interests. In order to make
history easy, it may be said that the second war
began July 1st, the day after the first war ended.

On June 21, 1913, General Savoff , the Bulgarian
generalissimo, sent the following telegram to the
commander of the 4th Bulgarian Army, who was at
Seres:

"I. — There is an alliance between the Servians and the
Greeks, whose object is to hold and divide the whole territory
of Macedonia on the right bank of the Vardar .... for
the Servians; Salonica and the regions of Pravishta and
Nigrita for the Greeks.

*'II. — The Servians do not recognize the treaty and do
not admit arbitration within the limits of the treaty.

"III. — We insist that the arbitators start from the basis
laid down in the treaty, i.e., concern themselves solely with
the contested zone. Since the non-contested territory belongs
to us according to the treaty, we desire that it should be
evacuated by the Servians or, at least, occupied by mixed
armies for such time as the pourparlers are going on. We
make the same proposition to the Greeks.

"IV. — These questions must be settled within ten days
and in our sense, or war is inevitable. Thus within ten days

—72—

we shall have either war or demobilization, according as the
government's demands are accepted or refused.

"V. — If we demobilize now, the territories mentioned
will remain in the hands of the Greeks and the Servians, since
it is difficult to suppose that they will be peacefully handed
over to us.

"VI. — The discontent which has recently manifested
itself in certain parts of the army gives ground for supposing
that there is a serious agitation against war. The attention
of intelligent soldiers must be directed to the fact that should
the army become disorganized and incapable of action, the
result will be as described in paragraph V. Reply with least
possible delay whether the state of the army is such that it
can be counted on for successful operations."

The Bulgarian premier told the cabinet that the
Servians would more than likely make war on them
after any arbitration which would give Bulgaria her
claimed advantages, and that he thought it better to
fight it out then.

Servia consented unreservedly to arbitration.
The sentiment of the Bulgarian cabinet was not in
favor of war, but it is now certain that public opinion
and General Savoff, whose military glory had ex-
tended his influence into politics, were for war.

On June 28th, General Savoff sent another tele-
gram to the commander of the 4th Army:

"In order that our silence under Servian attacks may
not produce a bad effect on the state of mind of the army, and
on the other hand to avoid encouraging the enemy, I order
you to attack the enemy all along the line as energetically as
possible, without deploying all your forces or producing a
prolonged engagement. Try to establish a firm footing on
Krivolak on the right bank of the Bregalnitca. It is prefera-
ble that you undertake a fusillade in the evening and make
an impetuous attack on the whole line during the night and
at daybreak. The operation is to be undertaken tomorrow,
June 29th, in the evening."

General Savoff also sent a letter of instructions
to the 5th and 6th Armies, outlining several details
of his conception of the political situations, in which
he said: "Since our enemies are in occupation of

—73—

territories which belong to us, let us try by our arms
to seize new territory until European powers inter-
vene to stop our military action/'

It is imputed that the King gave Savoff his in-
structions, but the General remains silent on the
subject. At any rate, consequent unhappy results
of Savoff' s actions demanded some sort of an ex-
planation, as an order of a regimental commander
directing a part of the attack on the Servian lines
soon became pubhc. Savoff was made the diplomatic
and official **goaf by his relief from the command
of the army without any other official assignment.
The official reports of the junction of the 2d and 4th
Armies in the last days of the Macedonian Campaign
state that these armies, on account of the common
task assigned to them, were placed under one com-
mander whose name is not given. This man was
Savoff, as I believe I know from my personal rela-
tions, to the situation at Kustendil where I saw
General Savoff.

Bulgaria suffered sorely from the disadvantage
of her position, as she was compelled to keep her
main army at Chatalja until the terms of peace were
signed. The other Allies had months to entrench
themselves in their positions where the Bulgarsmust
meet them. Bulgaria had, at the very first, to
abandon the Chatalja Hnes, with the Turkish Army
still on her newly guaranteed frontier, and to con-
centrate all her forces on her west and southwest
borders.

The Greeks with their main army in Salonika,
started their part of it by an attack on the battalion
that the Bulgars had maintained at that point. The
Bulgars nudged the Servians in Macedonia, but the
latter said they were not fighting. It was claimed
to be an outpost contact. The Bulgars defended
their western frontier against the Serbs, and met the

—74—

Serbs, Montenegrins and Greeks in Macedonia south
of Western Bulgaria. There in Macedonia, in the val-
leys of the Bregalnitca and the Struma, the campaign
continued through the month of July, while the wily
Turks slipped back into Adrianople, and the Rouman-
ians crossed the Danube on their way to Sofia. With
this new enemy within a few days' march of her de-
fenseless capital, Bulgaria was compelled to sue for
peace. An armistice was declared August 1, 1913,
and the treaty of Bucharest followed. This instru-
ment not only gave to her former allies all that was
in dispute, but it took from Bulgaria some of the ter-
ritory she had won from the Turks, and dehvered
'*the most unkindest cut of alP' by robbing her of an
intergral part of her original domain. So the Second
War ended in a state of local tension greater than
that with which the first began. There has been
left among Christians animosities and hatreds more
bitter than had existed between Christian and Mos-
lem, and all factions only wait for a favorable op-
portunity to resort again to arms.

Bulgaria, today, by reason of the advantage
taken of her in the treaty of Bucharest, in August,
1913, cherishes a most bitter resentment for the
parties to the ''hold up,'' namely, Roumania, Greece
and Servia, which she will exhibit in arms when her
first opportunity arrives. This, too, will not be an
action of the government in pursuit of a diplomatic
policy; it will be an expression of a deep and enduring
sentiment of her people. Under present conditions
Servia, Greece and Roumania are not free to assume
any other mihtary burdens, and Bulgaria, therefore,
holds the * 'balance of peace" in the Balkans, though
not for her inherent interest in the abstract prin-
ciples of peace.

With the neutrality of Bulgaria assured and
guaranteed, which is manifestly impossible under

—76--

present conditions, it is probable that both Roumania
and Greece by this time would have allied themselves
with one of the sides in the European War. Roumania
must make the first move in placating Bulgaria by
the restoration of the stolen province of the Dobrudza.
Such action will leave Bulgaria free to turn her front
towards Servia and Greece. Servia, being sufficiently
occupied at present, Greece alone remains to restrain
Bulgaria's pressure. As Greece has ambitions in the
JEgesLii and Albania, which could be better pursued
after securing Bulgarian neutrality, she might see
her way clear to return to Bulgaria her (Greece's)
portion of the loot of Bucharest. After that, Bulgaria's
enforcement of her secret treaty with Servia, which
caused the Second Balkan War, would be a matter of
simple military migration into Servian Macedonia,
which the treaty gave to Bulgaria. Then all the
Balkan States would be free to make their align-
ments in the great war and Bulgaria's position would
be determined to the extent of enforcing the terms
of the Treaty of London, which gave her the Enos-
Media line as her frontier with Turkey, but which
the Turks violated by their return to Adrianople
after the Bulgarian army was withdrawn from
Chatalja, at the beginning of the Second War.

This movement for Bulgaria would not heavily
tax her resources, as the Turks are now engaged in
other military adventures so critically affecting their
destiny as to make the defense of Thrace a mere in-
cident. With the recovery of the province of
Dobrudza, and the undisputed occupation of Mace-
donia and Thrace, Bulgaria's ambitions would be so
wholly realized that her consequent desire to enjoy
the blessings of peace might permit the Balkan
States, as far as they, themselves, are concerned, to
live happily ever after.

It is my purpose to attempt to describe with the

—76-

aid of a campaign chart the general movements of
the Bulgarian armies in the Second War. But to
safeguard you against the dangers of accumulating
misinformation I will quote a warning given by one
of the most careful and experienced students of
Balkan affairs, who has written several books on
subjects pertaining to the Near East, and who says:

*'I have seen enough of Eastern countries to entertain the
utmost distrust of any specific statement of fact, with regard
to occurrences which are alleged to have taken place there,
no matter on what authority the statement is based."

—77—

The Campaign

Although in the tactical operations of the Second
Balkan War, the Bulgarian Army seemed almost to
run the gamut of misadventure and misfortune,
which began with the inherent difficulties of her po-
litical situation and ended in her humihation and dis-
aster, these unhappy results were brought about not
by her former Allies alone but through foreign politi-
cal influence and by the intervention of another
enemy. I believe that there is enough evidence at
hand to show that Bulgaria was about to extricate
herself from her generally considered insuperable
difficulties with the Servians and Greeks, when
Roumania intervened and prevented the successes
which she was about to achieve and which would
have won her certainly more favorable terms in set-
tlement with the allies if not a complete victory.

The sketch (Page 76) which shows the territory,
lost by the Turks, as it was occupied by the several
allies on July 30th, at the time the Second War be-
gan, will readily reveal the difficulties encountered
by Bulgaria in making her military distribution with-
out indicating a preparation for war. On the other
hand Servia and Greece enjoyed the great advantage
of the six months of military preparation, quietly
though energetically made during the time that
Bulgaria was detained in Thrace pending her set-
tlement with the Turks.

General Savoff was Commander-in-Chief when
hostilities began as the result of Bulgaria's political
blunder which was rather too highly seasoned with
military adventure, for an event not accompanied by
a declaration of war. This mistake was almost im-
mediately realized, but the attempt to correct it, by
stopping the aggressive, which was only meant to be
a demonstration, proved futile because the Allies in

—78—

their turn assumed the offensive and thus compelled
Bulgaria to continue the war.

In an attempt to describe the general features
of this campaign, it is not without profound regret
that we approach the disquieting indication for the
employment of the so-called ''names'' of places and
even of persons (not to be mistaken for harsh
epithets), which are portrayed by groups of phonetic
symbols, so vicious in assortment and vile in arrange-
ment that they suggest to the Christian eye some
heathen blasphemy, or, more happily perhaps, only
unutterable sounds. But as the accompanying map
bears the names of all the places mentioned, it is
hoped that this unhappy situation, resulting from too
many centuries of philological carelessness and con-
fusion to be corrected at this time may outrage no
more than the eye and that the tongue at least may
remain pure.

General Savoff 's strategic plan for the conduct
of the war provided for an immediate invasion of
Old Servia, with an interruption of the line of com-
munications of the Servian army in Macedonia, which
would at once place it in an untenable situation and
leave a sufficiently large Bulgarian army to conquer
the Greeks. On the other hand, it was the plan of
the Allies for the Servians to advance slowly, while
the Greeks pushed back the Bulgarians as. speedily
as possible, thus bringing about the contact of the
Servian right with the Greek left for a final effort
that would either crush or envelop the Bulgarians.

Five Bulgarian armies were distributed for the
tactical execution of this strategy as follows: The
1st Army of forty battalions was concentrated on
the Servian frontier south of the railroad in the
Pirot district, opposed to sixteen Servian battalions.
The 3d Army of forty battaHons was placed at
Vlassina, near the pass south of that occupied by the

—79—

railroad, for an attack on sixteen Servian battalions
at Surdulica. The 5th Army of forty battalions
was on the Macedonian frontier beyond Kustendil in
front of Egri Palanka. The 4th Army was on the
line from the Valley of the Strumica to Istip and
Kochina in the Valley of Bregalnitca with reinforce-
ments available to place ninety-six battalions in this
section. The main Servian army, in front of the
4th Army, consisted of about eighty battalions
in five divisions, placed on the line from Egri Palanka
(near the Bulgarian frontier), along the western
slopes of the Valleys of the Zletovska and the Bregal-
nitca and then down the Valley of the Vardar to
Lake Do j ran. The 2d Army was distributed
from Kukus to Kavala, so as to contain the Greek
army, but without any real concentration.- While its
organization consisted of two divisions of fifty-seven
battalions, including six battalions of railroad guards,
it had an actual strength of only 35,000 men. The
entire Greek army concentrated about Salonika num-
bered about 120,000.

The combined Bulgarian armies had a strength
of about 220,000, to which was opposed about 115,000
Servians and 120,000 Greeks, or an allied army of
235,000. The Bulgarian concentration had been
started a month before the beginning of the war,
but all of the divisions of the 4th Army were not
in position on July 29th. The Bulgarian disadvantage
in this situation may be appreciated when it is
remembered that the entire Servian and Greek
armies had held their positions for six months with
nothing to divert their attention from constructing
defenses and making other arrangements for the
campaign.

The left wing of the 5th Bulgarian Army rested
on Rujen, a mountain 2,235 meters high, on the
southwest frontier, which was connected by a broad

—80—

saddle, fit to be called a causeway, to an adjacent
Macedonian mountain, Car-Vrh (Sultan Tepe), 2,104
meters high. On the latter, the Servians mounted
heavy guns and built an automobile road for fifteen
or twenty miles from Egri Palanka towards Kochina
in the Bregalnitca Valley. I have been over this
terrain from Komonovo to Egri Palanka and Kochina,
where every position had been most elaborately
prepared by the Serbs against Bulgarian attack and
for their own retreat. There were miles of trenches
that were, never occupied. As the Bulgars had no
road to Rujen, and so could not avail themselves of
its superior tactical advantage, they were unable on
this terrain to make any advance and could only
conduct a guerre in place.

The political complications with which the cam-
paign began so muddled up the military arrange-
ments that it was not possible for the Bulgarian
strategy to realize any of its inherent advantages.
General Savoff was relieved from command on July
3d, the fourth day of the war, with some political
fan-fare and a telegram to St. Petersburg, it is said,
announcing the summary dismissal from office of the
culprit who, without authority, had started the war.
In the second week of the war it was rumored in
Sofia that General Savoff was in disgrace and had
been dismissed from the army. Sometime later he
was really, though informally and almost sur-
reptitiously, sent to command the 4th and 5th
Armies at Kustendil, where I saw him in the third
week of the war.

General Dimitrieff became commander-in-chief,
and, whatever may have been his virtues and abilities,
the venerable though disaster-inviting process of
swapping horses while crossing a stream, which
permits a new commander to execute or muss up the
plans of his predecessor, already in operation, was

-81—

bound to work to the great disadvantage of the
Bulgarian army. It seems that everything went
amiss from the very first. The 1st and 3d Armies
moved into Servia on July 6th, to be recalled on
July 9th, and instead of cutting the Servian army
off from its base, while the 4th Army immobilized
it in its front, the Servian army was left free to
attack the 4th Army in superior numbers from a
most favorable position.

This surprising and disrupting change in strategy
is attributed to the Russian demand upon Bulgaria
to confine the conflict to the disputed zone and not
to muss up any new territory. There can be no
doubt that that abrupt change was made only on some
demand or threat from a foreign source, for which
Bulgarian commanders were not responsible. The
same restraint being imposed upon Servia, the entire
theater of operations was then confined to Bulgaria's
Macedonian frontier. The 1st Army was then
broken up and distributed to the 4th and 5th
Armies as the progress of the campaign indicated,
and, more particularly, as the greater difficulties of
transportation permitted. The impetuosity with
which these movements were made was revealed in
the unintentional separation of battahons from their
regiments and companies from their battalions, as I
certainly know from personal observation.

After the first week of the war, as there was no
important change in the position of the 5th Army or
of the Servian Army concentrated against it, the
principal interests in the campaign lies in the theater
occupying the valleys of the Bregalnitca, Strumitca
and Struma, where the Bulgarian 2d and 4th Armies
met their first reverses against the Greeks and Ser-
vians.

—82—
Position In the Servian Theater

In the evening of June 29th, the 4th Army made
its unexpected, though unfortunate, attack upon the
Servian Division on the western slopes of theZletov-
ska valley, which was renewed from the positions
thus gained on the morning of July 30th. The Com-
manding Officer of the 4th Army then received an
order to discontinue hostilities and to open negotia-
tions with the Servians for an armistice. The brigade
commanders received their orders about noon and at
once suspended the action. The men, believing the
fighting over, left their positions and were separated
from their arms. The Serbs did not receive the par-
limentaires but made an unexpected attack which
routed the Bulgarians with great losses. Following
this advantage the Serbs occupied a position which
commanded Istip, from which, in a few days, the 4th
Army was compelled to retire, with the right wing
passing up the valley of the Bregalnitca to Kochina
and the left wing into the valley of the Strumitca.
As the line of supply of both the 1st and 4th Armies,
which had been maintained by rail from Adrianople
through Drama and Seres, would be interrupted and,
as both armies would then be based on Sofia through
the valley of the Struma, it became necessary to pro-
tect the new line of communications.

As the Commanding Officer of the 4th Army re-
ceived orders to retire and to protect the right flank
of the 2d Army, on July 7th, he sent the artillery
and wagon trains of his left wing through the valley
of the Strumitca to enter the valley of the Struma at
Petric, in withdrawal towards the Bulgarian frontier.

Position on the Greek Theater

The battalion of 1,000 men is the conventional
unit of measure of strength in the Balkan armies,

-83—

although the division unit is used in a more technical
sense. The Bulgarian division, however, is much
larger than the Servian or Greek divisions, as the
former consists of three brigades of two regiments
each and the latter do not use brigades but assign four
regiments to a division. As four battalions form a
regiment, in all of these armies, the normal composi-
tion of a Bulgarian division is twenty-four battalions
while that of the Greek or Servian is sixteen battalions.

In the 2d Bulgarian Army, all of the organiza-
tions were so depleted that with fifty-seven battalions,
thirty-five batteries and ten escadrons (one fourth
mounted) the total strength was only 35,000 men. In
the entire Greek Army, which opposed the 2d Bul-
garian Army, all of the organizations were at full
strength, as it had taken a very subordinate part in
the war against Turkey and it had had sufficient
opportunity after that time to complete the cadres, so
that the ninety battalions with about 1,200 men each,
eighty-four batteries and ten escadrons made a force
of about 120,000 men. The Bulgarian organization as
it is here given is taken from Bulgarian reports, which
also estimates the Greek army as a little more than
twice the Bulgarian strength ; but from Greek sources
I have the Greek strength as 120,000. The Greeks
had a greatly superior advantage in artillery suit-
able for the mountainous terrain of the campaign,
in that they had sixty mountain guns while the
Bulgars had only twelve.

For the graphic description of the general tacti-
cal features of the campaign, the 2d Bulgarian Army
may be fairly represented by six brigades of 6,000
men and the whole Greek Army by ten divisions of
12,000 men each.

Positions

The Bulgarian 2d Army was distributed along

—84—

a front of 130-140 km. (80-85 miles) in length extend-
ing from the left (east) bank of the Vardar at
Guevgueli to Kavala.

The Greek Army was concentrated in three main
groups from the right (west) bank of the Vardar to
Lake Tashino, and beyond, along the coast to the
Bay of Leftero.

Greek Offense

The plans were: (1) To drive the Bulgars away
from the left bank of the mouth of the Struma and
out of the Pravisteh district; to cut the railway from
Drama to Seres, which supplied the 2d and 4th
Armies, and also to isolate the Bulgarian left wing.
(2) To advance their left wing from Guevgueli toward
Lake Dojran; to cut the pass leading from Dojran to
Strumitca, and thus to interrupt communications
between the 2d and 4th Bulgarian Armies.

Bulgarian Defense

The Belasica Mountains, lying north of the lower
valleys of the Vardar and Struma, which separate
this theater from the valley of the Strumitca, can
only be crossed by two passes; one north of Lake
Dojran and the other at Rupel, where the Struma
emerges from the most wretchedly mountainous
country in Macedonia. The only possible retreat to-
wards the Bulgarian frontier for the 2d Army and
for the left wing of the 4th Army, which had fallen
back into the valley of the Strumitca, as well as the
only line of supply for these forces, was through
Rupel pass and the valley of the Struma. The pos-
session of both these passes were absolutely neces-
sary to the Bulgars in case of either fight or flight.

General Ivanoff, commanding the 2d Army
published the Bulgarian plan in the following order:

1. The left wing will advance, drive the Greeks

—86—

to the right (west) bank of the mouth of the Struma
and take position with shortened front and holding
the left (east) bank at the mouth of the Struma, in
order to protect the railroad.

2. The right wing will cross the Vardar at
Guevgueli, establish a bridgehead on the west (right)
bank and if compelled to retire will destroy the
bridge.

These movements were executed and a brigade
from the Pravistha district was sent by rail to rein-
force the force at Kukus.

The Bulgarian battalion, which had remained in
Salonica since the surrender of the Turks, was
crushed by the Greeks.

Then on July 3d, the commander of the 2d
Army wired to the Commander-in-Chief: "If we
are forced to retreat, shall we retire into the valley
of the Struma or from Drama?'' He was answered:
''The task of your army is to secure the flank and
the rear of the 4th and 5th Armies; in case of re-
treat, retire slowly, keeping up energetic resistance,
into the valleys of the Struma and the Vardar/'
There is certainly some evidence in this order to
support the contention that the Commander-in-chief
did not fully and clearly understand the position of
either the 2d or the 4th Army, for there was no
chance of escape for either army in the valley of the
Vardar and only the 2d Army could have retired
from Drama. The assignment to cooperation with
the 4th Army, however, determined the valley of the
Struma as the line of retreat.

On the following day the Greeks attacked all
along the line. On the Bulgarian left, a futile at-
tempt was made to land at Tusla under the protec-
tion of gunboats. On the center the Bulgarians
were driven back toward the Belasica Mountains,
the left center resting on Seres. On the Bulgarian

—86—

right, the force holding the Guevgueli bridgehead
was driven back and in its hasty retirement the
bridge was not destroyed. This force, however, re-
tired in good order and took up a position covering
the pass leading from Dojran to Strumitca. As an
incident illustrating the determined defense of the
Bulgarians against overwhelming forces, it may be
mentioned that five Greek divisions attacked Colonel
Rebavoff 's Brigade near Kukus inflicting a loss of
seven officers and 500 men. Protecting the retire-
ment of this defeated force, the machine gun de-
tachment of the 32d Nova Zagora Regiment remained
in position until all its officers and men were either
killed or wounded.

On July the 7th, the Greeks renewed the attack
on the Bulgarian right and left, with their original
purpose of preventing their enemy's retreat into the
valleys of the Strumitca or the Struma. They suc-
ceeded, on the right, in crossing to the east bank of
the Struma at Seres and interrupting the railroad,
but only after all of the wagon trains and artillery
of the Bulgarian left wing had been withdrawn
towards Rupel Pass. The infantry of the left wing
concentrated at Drama and retired into the valley
leading to Nevikop. The center withdrew, unmo-
lested, from the Belasica Mountains towards Rupel
Pass. The right wing retired toward Strumitca
while the brigade of Colonel Kavarvalijev held the
pass at Dojran during the day and night with almost
a disastrous loss and the death of the commander.
The artillery and wagon trains of this right wing
were hurried from Strumitca toward Petric, while
the brigade ^as holding its position.

At this same time, the 4th Army had met with
serious reverses which forced it back with a separa-
tion of the right from the left wing at Istip. The
two divisions of the right wing had already retired

—87—

with their trains and artillery along the Bregalnitca
to Kochina and the other two divisions forming the
left wing were withdrawn towards Strumitca, from
where the infantry could and did later retire over
the mountains in a northeast direction towards
Pechova, although the artillery and trains could only
escape by a flank march through the valley of the
Strumitca, towards Petric, and thence to the valley
of the Struma. General Kovatcheff, (Commanding
the 4th Army) at this time so feared a catastrophe
that he telegraphed General Headquarters urgently
recommending intervention, as a means to suspend
hostilities * 'before the fatal hour arrives.'' He re-
ceived a very elaborate order directing a movement
against the Servians, which had already been at-
tempted with such disastrous results that two of his
divisions had sustained a loss of 30 per cent.

The heroic temper of the Commander-in-chief
rose sublimely above his appreciation of the situation
in the reply to the Commanding Officer of the 4th
Army, in which he instructed the latter to place no
confidence in intervention but to trust only to the
force of arms and * *to attack the Greeks energetically
and roll up their left wing— or else die in honorable
battle. In so sacrificing yourself you will save the
2d Army.'' General Kovatcheff, (Commanding 4th
Army) thought "the idea superb but inopportune" as
the infantry on his left wing was then on the way to
the upper Bregalnitca, near Pechovo and Carevocelo,
and its artillery, except a battalion with the rear
guard, and all the wagon trains had gone to the val-
ley of the Struma.

On July 9th, the rear guard brigade, with its
artillery and train, as it was in a critical position in
the valley of the Strumitca, with the Greeks press-
ing on the Belasica Mountains, was ordered to march
without halting to Petric, in order to reach the

-88-

Struma valley road. This order was given, notwith-
standing the request of the brigade commander for
delay on account of the greatly fatigued condition of
his men, who had been in continuous operations for
two frightfully hot days, clad in winter clothing. In
spite of these orders the column halted for the night,
but the 2d Army fell back during the night from
Belasica Mountain and in the morning, as the march
of the brigade was resumed, the Greeks attacked
them in flank in superior force and the artillerymen
unhooked the horses and abandoned their guns. The
infantry retired to the north over the mountains.

Two days later, when General Kovatcheff reached
Pechora, he was relieved of his command by the
King because he had "lost faith in his army and
himself. ''

In this way both the 2d and 4th Armies were
extricated from a most diflficult position. With
the exception of the lost battalion of artillery, the
trains of both armies had been collected from a wide
front and sent over the most available road for their
escape from lower Macedonia.

When the flank march through the Valley of the
Strumitca began, the hospitals at Radovista and
Strumitca contained 2,500 sick and wounded of the
Fourth Army whose transportation added much to
the burden of the retreat. The early interruption of
the line of communications by rail, before the more
difficult and more tedious route by road was estab-
lished, left the army with a ration reduced to one
half a loaf or one pound of bread.

The Fourth Army was reformed on the Bregal-
nitca, in front of Caravocelo, with its left flank in
contact with the right flank of the 2d Army,
which had fallen back through Kresna Pass. This
Bulgarian movement prevented a junction of the
Servian and Greek armies, as the former was then in

—89—

the lower Bregalnitca and the latter in the Struma
Valley.

Then, on July 15th, the last straw was added to
the almost crushing weight of Bulgarian disaster,
when the Roumanian army crossed the Danube and
began its march on Sofia, which, under the existing
conditions, could be met only by a decision to make
no resistance to this advance.

As the Greeks were not moving energetically
into the Valley of the Struma, General Ivanhoff
prepared for an advance of the 2d Army, even
though another menace then confronted the Bul-
garians, when one regiment of his right wing was
reported to have three fourths of its strength
disabled by ''gastro-enteritis,'' which most probably
was cholera, as 10,000 cholera cases were later re-
ceived in evacuation hospitals of the 2d and 4th
Armies. General Ivanhoff was not permitted to
advance because he was informed the political con-
ditions indicated the continuation of the defensive.

The events of July 24th probably mark the
critical stage and the turn of fortune in the Bul-
garian campaign, as on this day the Servians made
a determined attack and were defeated with great
loss (at Banjatchuka, Povijen and Calimanovi)
and the 2d Army received strong reenforcements.
After this encouragement a strategic retirement of
the 2d Army was ordered, with the purpose of
drawing the Greeks out of the mountains and into
the upper Valley of the Struma beyond Kresna Pass,
where the Bulgarians hoped to used their field ar-
tillery to better advantage than in the mountains,
where the preponderance of Greek mountain guns
had given the latter a great advantage in the earlier
stages of the campaign. Positions were taken in
front of Dzuemaja on both banks of the Struma and

—go-
frantic entrenching efforts were exhibited to the
Greeks which induced them to advance.

On July 27th the 2d Army was given to
General Savoff, who was already in command of
the 4th and 5th Armies, and he directed the com-
bined operations against both the Servians and the
Greeks. The Bulgarian left wing was then reenf orced
by the column which came from Sofia by way of
Samakov. The left wing of the 4th Army was
included in the movement so to form the right wing
in the attack which was made against both Greek
wings, with the object of enveloping them and the
cutting off their retreat. The Greek right was
struck in the Valley of the Metza (at Dobninishteh),
driven both north (from Nehomija) into Predel Pass
and south towards Novokop, with the loss of two
guns and the wagon trains which carried the bag-
gage of the officers and the outgoing mail bags of
the 7th Greek Division.

This incident may be worthy of passing notice,
as some of the letters of the Greek soldiers, which
have been published in fac simile by the Bulgarian
governnient, are printed in translation in the report
of the Carnegie "International Commission for the
Investigation of the Balkan Wars,'' as the expressions
of Greek soldiers seem to show the manner in which
their campaign was conducted.

-91-

31111 I

j2 o -I- ■•- •«-

^ < (S ID iS

The Greek left was attacked with equal success
from the Valley of Zlenitca.

On July 30th, when the armistice was announced
and the order for cessation of hostilities was most
reluctantly given, the Bulgarian line lay in the form
of a horseshoe with its center massed at the *'toe''
(in front of Djumica), the right wing at one "heeF'
(near Nevokop) and the left wing at the other
"heer* (at Pechovo). The main body of the Greek
army faced directly against the inside of the *'toe/'

—92—

The Greeks in their retreat, with the center of the
2d Army in pursuit, would have had to have made a
longer march than that of the Bulgarian wings in
closing in on the only road by which the Greeks could
escape.

While this report is taken largely from Bulgarian
official reports, I have the personal accounts of Bul-
garian officers and of most creditable observers in
the person of two German doctors who were battalion
surgeons with the troops engaged, and all corroborate
some of the related incidents. As it is quite probable
that the submerging levels of the "hydrostatic para-
dox of controversy'' may long obscure the historic
surface of these events, which have already sunk
into insignificance in comparison with the vastly
more important military history that is now in mak-
ing, and as any evidence that may support the Bul-
garian account of their own operations may not be
out of place, I feel able myself to verify in a general
way, at least, some of these incidents, because I
arrived on July 24th at Kustendil, the headquarters
of General Savoff and of General Tocheff, command-
ing the 5th Army, just at that time when fortune
first seemed to favor Bulgarian arms.

Concerning this day, it may be remembered,
two critical events are recorded: one was what the Bul-
garians called their "success against the Servians,''
and the other was the timely reenforcement of
the 2d Army. The effect of these two fortunate
incidents had not then been felt at Kustendil, On
that same day the order of the day before for the
evacuation of the hospitals was then being executed
as the preliminary step to the evacuation of the
town, the Valley of the Struma and the withdrawal
of the 5th Army from the frontier to the defile
through which the river emerges, a few miles east
of town, in its course from Sofia. The daily in-

—OS-
creasing number of trench-line scars could be seen
on the mountain sides. The whole situation was one
of military activity under the strain of a stern
resignation, moaning laments and bitter accusations
of responsibility for the ''ruin of Bulgaria.'' Un-
broken lines of bullock wagons were creaking night
and day on the road to Carovocelo and to the 4th
Army with ammunition and supplies. They were
returning as regularly with wounded— a thousand in
the first day of my service and from three to five
hundred daily for several days after.

The 2d Army was based on Dubnitca— Sofia
and I knew nothing personally of that line.

Regiments marched through the town at night,
but in what numbers I did not know. Artillery was
detrained and rattled off to Carovocelo. I saw as
many as a dozen guns on the way. Cafes were
closed, and gendarmes, such as there were - grizzled
and stooped old men in sheepskin coats carrying
obsolete arms -ordered the dispersion of the groups
that gathered in the streets to talk with great in-
terest labout something. The next day the coffee-
houses were opened; the following day they were
closed again, and I then learned that the coffee-
house was the barometer of public tension, as the
commanding general ordered them closed when there
was any unhappy or disquieting rumors in circulation,
and then ' 'lifted the lid'' when the news was good.
On the second day before the armistice the
barometer was away up; the "lid was off;" the coffee-
houses were open and almost everybody was reck-
lessly ordering the second and even third cup of
coffee at one sitting. My colleague let me into the
secret; he told me of the "great success" that the
Bulgars were about to attain in the capture of the
Greek army, as it was then almost surrounded and

—94—

there were sufficient troops available to complete the
movement.

Then I saw the outbursts of indignation and
heard the protests of injustice and wails of despair
when the announcement of the armistice cut short
the campaign and denied to the Bulgars the few
days necessary to their confidently expected achieve-
ment. I heard the commanding general of an army
utter his '' miser ahles'' and other more impressive
though less intelligible expressions which must have
done him a great deal more good. There could have
been no doubt to any one there in Kustendil that the
Bulgars on the 24th day of July feared they had lost
their campaign and that on July 30th they were
wholly confident that they had won it. Besides,
there is at least one historical fact which supports
their position. The King of Greece did telegraph
the King of Roumania on July 30th demanding an
" immediate '^ armistice, and the King of Roumania,
with his army then within a few miles of Sofia, did
enforce the Greek demand upon Bulgaria and com-
pelled her to accept the armistice just as she was
about to capture the Greek army.

Three commanders of this war, Generals Savoff,
Ivanhoff and Dimitrieff, have been variously and
vigorously traduced for the disaster they are said to
have brought to Bulgarian arms, although it does
seem that each one of them has escaped with a few
shreds of reputation, because General Savoff was
sent as the Bulgarian plenipotentiary to negotiate
the treaty with Turkey, General Ivanhoff was deco-
rated by the King with an order so high that the
King himself was the only other member, and General
Dimitrieff has gone to command a Russian division in
a greater war.

But in the advantages she has taken of the
possibilities for controversy in placing the responsi-

96-

bility for her defeat, Bulgaria has shown to the
world an appreciation as keen as that of other en-
lightened nations for making the most of these rich
opportunities for excitement which come as the
aftermath of war.

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1914

Army Service Schools.

ourth Lecture

NOTES ON THE BALKAN AND
TURKISH ARMIES

Strength

T^HE population of Bulgaria is about four and one-
-■- fourth million. The peace footing of the army
is about 60,000 which is raised to war strength by
the addition of trained reserves, provided for in
cadres of 200,000, which are increased by additional
calls to 300,000, or an extreme limit of 400,000, so
that one- tenth of the population is normally available
for military service, as more than this number were
under arms during the last war.

The population of Servia is about three million.
The peace strength of the army is about 30,000, with
a provision for war strength of 200,000.

Montenegro, with a population of only 250,000,
exacts military service from every male, who is big
enough to carry a gun and not too old to climb a
mountain. They had under arms from 45,000 to
50,000 in the last war which shows that they con-
tributed one fifth of their population, which is, no
doubt, the factor of extreme limit in the military
strength of any people.

The population of Turkey is at present, and
always has been unknown. It has been given as about
twenty- four million. Foreign officials living in Turkey
have not been able to make the estimate so high. I
have been told by those in a position to know, in
Constantinople, that, considering the territorial losses

96

—97—

Turkey has sustained in the last few years, the popu-
lation at present is about fourteen million. Before
the first war Turkey had under arms 300,000 men,
which represented her standing army, but they were
standing around over such a widely dispersed area
that she did not have at the beginning of the war
that many regular troops in action. The practical
limit of her effective military strength is probably
about 500,000. Prior to 1909 only Moslems were
eligible for military service, but after that time all
Ottoman subjects became amenable to conscription.
The Christian contingent was not added to the army
at once, but 25% was taken each year, and the pre-
caution was invariably observed to send the Christian
recruits to stations farthest from their homes.

At the beginning of the Balkan Wars the allied
armies at first numbered about 625,000. The Turk-
ish Nizam and Redifs together numbered 300,000.
During the course of the war the allies had under
arms about 800,000 and the Turks 600,000.

Organization

In the Balkan and Turkish armies the military
unit of strength is the battalion, and in all except
the Turkish armies the normal strength of the bat-
talion is 1,000 rifles. The larger Bulgarian units
were brigades, divisions and armies. The Serbs did
not employ the brigade, while the Turks divided
their armies into corps and divisions without brigades.
The Bulgarian infantry regiment consisted of four
battalions of four companies of 250 rifles each an d^ a
few unarmed men, and the regiment was considered
as carrying 4,000 rifles, and drawing 5,000 rations.
Two regiments comprised the brigade, and three
brigades the division, or twenty-four battalions.
The Bulgarian cavalry did not seem to be of much
efficiency or very well trained and it was poorly

—OS-
mounted. The squadron consisted of about 200 men,
and there were four of them to the regiment, and
ten regiments in the army. The artillery was of
two classes, the modern Schneider-Cruesot quick
firing guns of 7.5 cm., with three battalions of three
batteries of four guns each, or 36 guns. The older
materiel was the Krupp 7.5 and 8.7 cm. non-quick
firing guns, formed in two battalions of three bat-
teries of four guns each, or twenty-four guns.

The Servian infantry units were the same as the
Bulgarian, but their companies were divided into
tenths. They did not employ the brigade formation
but their division consisted of four regiments, or
sixteen battalions. Their cavalry was organized like
the Bulgarian, and they had the same number, ten
regiments. The peace footing was only five regi-
ments, but soldiers taken from the reserves who
'*loved horses'' made up the extra units. The
Servian artillery was of modern Schneider-Cruesot
7.5, 8, 12 and 15 cm. The field regiments consisted
of three battalions of three batteries, of four guns
each.

The Montenegrin infantry was about the same as
the Servian, but the artillery was made up of rich
and rare varieties of ordnance, as the most of
their pieces had been presented to the King.

The Turkish infantry regiments consisted of
three battalions of three companies, 500 men to the
battalion, or 1,500 to the regiment. The cavalry
organization consisted of four squadrons of 100 to
125 men each, approximately 500 men to the regi-
ment. This arm was poorly organized and trained
and was badly mounted. It was largely used as a
remount service for mounted officers who were un-
able to provide their own horses, and the most of the
officers seem to have been mounted in this way. The
German instructors had tried to introduce into the

—go-
cavalry organization that superior social caste that it
found in some of the crack cavalry organizations in
Western Europe.

An example of this spirit may be found in a regi-
ment of lancers that had permanent station at Con-
stantinople, and was commanded by a German cavalry
officer of great energy, who devoted his efforts
largely to establish the social caste of this organiza-
tion, in teaching the officers the graceful and easy
manners of the Cafe habitue' and fox hunter. He
met with some difficulty as the social system of the
country did not make it easy for the Turkish officers
to take their proper place among the membership of
the hunting clubs. However, the unhappy day came
when this regiment went to war. Some months after
when a lady in diplomatic circles asked this German
commander of the 1st Constantinople Lancers what
had become of his regiment and how he was then
occupying his time, he replied that his regiment was
engaged at the battle of Luli Burgas where he had
hoped they might render some service to the cause
of the Sultan, but something had happened that not
only led to its disorganization but to its complete dis-
appearance.

The Turkish artillery, of Krupp material and
about one-half modern, was poorly handled and ren-
dered i nefficient service. The difficulty of developing
an efficient artillery service in the Turkish army is
almost insurmountable, owing to the scarcity of sol-
diers who have enough elementary education and
mechanical competency to enable them to be trained
into gunners. Some of their batteries show rather
good form in the way of superficial manifestation at
drill and maneuvers, but the more technical accom-
plishments seem to be quite lacking.

—100—
Mobilization

The mobilization of the allied armies was carried
out promptly and effectively and all the cadres were
regularly filled at the time the war began.

The Turkish Army, however, was mobilized in
disorder and confusion. In the effort to increase the
strength of regular organizations by their reserves,
some of the Nizam, or regular regiments, were filled
with more reserves, or untrained recruits, than regu-
lars. There were no reserve lists prepared, and
when mobilization was ordered and reserves called
out, these reservists were assembled with recruits
without classification. The military authorities sent
requisitions to certain villages for their contributions
of men and the gendarmerie rounded up in various
communities the numbers that the head man was
ordered to supply. There was very little, if any,
efficient physical examination and the results of this
omission were very evident in the hospital service at
Constantinople, where all sorts of physical defects
were gathered for ultimate elimination. I terminat-
ed my medical service there with a series of opera-
tions for hernia which ranged in size from oranges
to watermelons. The reservists and recruits, gathered
at concentration centers, were subjected to most try-
ing forms of neglect. They were oftimes provided
with no shelter, and remained literally out in the
rain for days, and in some instances were partly if
not wholly starvedbefore joining their organizations.

The Bulgarian and Turkish
Soldier

Citizenry

As the qualities of the soldier depend to such a
great extent upon his condition as a citizen, the ma-

terial that Bulgaria found in her citizenry to form
her army, may be best presented by a few quotations
from a description of the Bulgarian people, written
some years ago by an author well qualified to discuss
the subjects, under the title of '^Bulgaria: The Pea-
sant State.'*

"The Bulgarians are not an engaging or attractive people;
they have no literature, no artistic taste, no intellectual cul-
ture, and no dramatic qualities; they are simply a race of
peasants with all the peasant's meanness, but with also all the
peasant's virtues of industry and frugality. They live roughly,
thriftily, and one might say sordidly, but they have suflacient
to eat; they are warmly if coarsely clothed, and they enjoy a
certain amount of rude comfort. They work hard but they
work for themselves. Poverty in our sense does not exist.
There are no labor troubles and no strikes, no conflicting in-
terests of workmen and employers— thanks to themselves.
If you want work done in Bulgaria you can get it done more
cheaply if you employ Bulgarian workmen by the day rather
than for the job or by piece work. Under the exterior of the
peasant, cunning and superstitious, in accordance with peasant
nature, the common Bulgarian conceals a shrewd and observ-
ant mind."

Every Bulgarian has two passions; that of sex
and that for land. No Bulgarian swain has the
effrontery to ask the father for the hand of his daugh-
ter if he cannot base his claim upon possession of
some property. It is his ambition to own a farm.
It is a greater offense to the Bulgarian peasant to
trespass upon his land than on his person.

The Turk, on the other hand, exhibits a different
social system. He has two extreme classes— the
Pashas and the peasants. There is no middle class,
but its void is filled by functionaries, or office-holders,
as almost every public office in the Ottoman Empire
is held by a Turk. The administration of the govern-
ment is based largely upon the principle of creating
sufficient public places to employ the Turkish civil
army of occupation. The Pashas are the administra-

tors or gentlemen pensioners living in some way on
the revenues of the government. The peasants are
the lowliest social order and exist in a primitive state
of poverty and abject humility. They seldom own
property and are almost always tenants of the land
they till. They feel that they exist by sufferance of
some illustrious person who holds their lives in his
hands. But few of them can read and they show no
other disposition than that humble desire of being
simply permitted to live. They seldom go far from
their villages and the recruits presented a pathetic
aspect as they entered Constantinople in droves,
timidly holding each others hands, but wholly re-
signed to their unknown fate.

Military Training

The Turk serves nominally three years with the
colors, but virtually they are dismissed when the
military authorities find it convenient, and many of
them serve much longer. Much of their service is
garrison duty where they are stationed to preserve
the authority of the empire. In late years, under
German instruction, there has been all sorts of educa-
tional schemes devised for the benefit of both officers
and soldiers, but the method has been better suited
to German society, as it has developed a sense of su-
periority on the part of the oflficer, which has led him
to keep aloof from the men, to the extent of taking
no part in their instruction, which is done entirely
by non-commissioned officers. The organization of
the army under German instruction has taken away
that class of company officers who used to control the
company as a head man rules his village, but the new
system has not developed a satisfactory substitute
for what it removed.

The Bulgar, on the other hand, has taken his

—103—
military training very seriously and always with a
deep personal interest. The two years he spends
with the colors in the infantry, and the three years
in mounted and other services, together with subse-
quent periods of instruction, makes him a competent
soldier. By attaining certain merit in his course of
instruction he may shorten the period of two years
to eighteen months, and that of three years to thirty
months.

Endurance

The endurance of the Eastern soldier is his
greatest characteristic, both as regards hardships
and patience. The Turkish soldier is a particularly
patient creature, and one should never do him the
injustice to even think of him as ''terrible.'' His
waiting capacity is admirable, as while he waits
he does not have to be watched. He will wait
in the rain, in the cold, without food, and without
question— after he has been told to do so. I have seen
hundreds of them in the public square and streets of
the village, which was the cholera camp, where the
houses had been vacated by their tennants who fled
in terror. These soldiers were forbidden to trespass
upon the property of the village, and many of them
died from the mere want of shelter without breaking
a window pane. In one dooryard, in which there
was a well, I saw a group of plainly sick soldiers
struggling for water, but they had been driven to
this infraction of discipline by abnormal thirst. One
half-delirious soldier did threaten an attack on a
front gate, but a non-commissioned officer drew a
pistol and he staggered back to the gutter.

When the Bulgarian soldier waits he must be
watched, for he wants to know what it is all about—
what he is waiting for, and, most probably, what he
is going to do next; but when it comes to sheer

physical exertion, his qualities are not much less than
superb, and his superior is hard to find.

I have a story of a Bulgarian march that may
furnish an illustration, as it was told by the regi-
mental apothecary, who accompanied the column on
foot throughout the march. A regiment of about
5,000 men had fought three days at Adrianople, with
a loss of killed and wounded of 302, when it was
ordered, with a battery of artillery, to proceed in all
haste to the Chatalja line, some 150 miles distant.
The march was begun immediately, and continued
literally night and day for eleven days; the men
slept at night only when the pioneers were making
roads for the artillery. Each day the progress was
from twelve to twenty miles, though one day on
good roads a march of twenty-five miles was made.
The average night's march was from a mile to a
mile and a half. The column arrived four days
in advance of the wagon train, during which time
the men were issued no rations, and their only sub-
sistence, during these four days, was the uncooked
wheat or corn which they found in the villages.
Two days after the arrival of the wagon train, the
first fresh meat was received, in the form of goats,
which could be driven faster than sheep, and thus
was made to form the component of an emergency
ration, which in this instance at least put the despised
and usually delinquent goat in the first place. The
apothecary said that everything went well, except
for one terrible infraction upon discipline, which
occasioned the loss of three loaves of bread which he
and the doctor had sequestered in the ambulance
cart.

Incidentally, cholera began its invasion about
this time, as all the Bulgarian troops in that position
suffered from lack of commissary supplies. Eight
thousand deaths in the Bulgarian troops followed in

—105—

the ensuing weeks. This epidemic was a considerr
able factor in preventing the success of the Bul-
garian attack, which was made about two weeks
after this time.

The Officers' Corps— Proportion to Soldiers

In the Bulgarian permanent establishment there
were 2,670 officers and 60,000 enlisted men. As the
army was to be increased in time of war to 300,000, a
provision was made for the production of reserve
officers by establishing an academy for reserve
cadets in Sofia. As conscription is universal, an
option on taking this course is given to men of
certain educational qualifications, who can pass an
examination in one year. Upon passing a final ex-
amination, the cadet attains the status of a reserve
officer of a certain grade, but if he fails he has to
complete his military service in the ordinary way.
The training of reserve officers in this way has been
most highly commended by military observers.

In the Servian army there are 2,050 officers and
30,000 men in the regular establishment, which
makes about the same number of officers to about
half the number of men as in the Bulgarian army.
The Servians had no academy for reserve cadets, but
produced their reserve officers by promotion of non-
commissioned officers from the regular service.

The Turks had no system of providing reserve
officers, and the result was an awful shortage of
officers in all their organizations, after their army
was mobilized.

Physique

Physically the Bulgarian officer is a pretty good
hardy specimen, the most of them rather short, stocky
and dark, but a number are of the Russian type,
rather tall, robust and blond. The Turkish officers as

—106—

a class are certainly physically inferior to the Bul-
garian. While their physical proportions in many
instances are superb, they are generally anaemic,
and looked as though they had been accustomed to
indoor rather than outdoor life.

Education and Training

The Bulgarian officers are home-made at their
military academy in Sofia by a course of two years,
which is followed by six months service before they
are commissioned. They are eligible for admission
to the academy between the ages of 16 and 21. There
is a system of honors and distinctions to be attained
in the course, upon which is based certain subsequent
educational opportunities at home and abroad. Quite
a number of them are sent each year to take military
courses in Russia, Italy and France, and such officers
as successfully complete their studies abroad en-
ter a preferred class to which advancement comes
more readily than to others, and they wear always
as part of their uniform a distinctive badge, which
indicates the character of their foreign military educa-
tion.

The Turks have a military academy in Constan-
tinople, but the cadet's course was affected by so
many elements of political and social favoritism, that
no military educational system of any real worth ex-
isted. Many young officers are sent abroad, but
they are usually selected on political or family grounds,
and when they return to their own service, their
subsequent military careers are largely affected by
the same factors.

Relation to Soldiers

The relation of the Bulgarian officer to the sol-
dier, is based upon the principles of stern discipline,
but bears no evidence of assumption of personal su-

—107—

periority, and shows no glaring mark of class distinc-
tion. Soldiers are particularly respectful and readily
obedient in the discharge of their duties and in the
endurance of hardships, but they seem to bear no
pious regard for the sacred personality of the officer.
During the progress of the Second War, I was riding on
a troop train, comfortably installed in the first class
compartment of a car, the roof of which was filled
to its capacity with soldiers on the way to join their
regiments. The soldiers maintained a somewhat
frivolous enthusiasm, by an almost continuous fusil-
lade, while the train was waiting at the station. It
soon became manifest that there was an element of
danger to anybody who appeared in the immediate
or somewhat remote vicinity. An officer standing on
the ground, gave the order to ''cease firing'', which
was only very imperfectly executed. He then
mounted the roof of the car, and while he went around
among the men and instructed them individually,
they obeyed his order while he was standing near
them and treated him with due respect, but they
continued to fire occasional joyousness after he had
passed on and until the train started.

The Turkish officer on the other hand, bears an
entirely different relation to the Turkish soldier.
Everything about his attitude is one of personal su-
periority and absolute control of life and limb. He
does not hesitate after the first loud words of admoni-
tion, reproach and certain hyperbolical forms of most
terrible threats, to strike the soldier on the cheek
with his open hand or, if the form has a little more
military character, he uses the flat of his saber.

I have seen a Military Pasha call on the carpet a
non-commissioned officer, with whom I had something
to do and, after storming about in a most frantic way,
announce that he was at that time suffering the last
drain upon his patience, and that on the very next

—108—

occasion for reproval, he would gouge out the sol-
dier's eyes. Then, to be more impressive, he assumed
a dramatic attitude, extending the two separated
fingers of his right hand with a hooking gesture
toward the soldier's eyes which indicated quite clearly
the process he intended to employ. As a fit climax
to the whole proceeding, after the soldier had faced
about and was near the door, the Pasha, lowering
his voice to a tone that was almost gentle, called the
soldier back to make another reference to the penalty
with which he was threatened. The soldier was in-
formed that the Pasha had forgotten to tell him that,
if the occasion arose, the Pasha would take particu-
lar delight in executing personally this summary
sentence. When the soldier had finally withdrawn.
His Excellency turned to me in the gentlest manner
and said with a little smile, that he had just shown
me the best way to observe discipline. He also re-
marked that the Turkish soldiers were so dense and
stupid and bestial that only such methods were ef-
fective. I have seen too many instances of this same
method of discipline to be mistaken about its custom-
ary employment.

Promotion

Bulgarian officers, except for special preference
based upon educational qualifications, are promoted
by seniority with an age limit retirement, as follows:

Captains retire at 48

Majors " '' 52

Lt-Colonels '' " 55

Colonels '* " _ 58

General officers retire at . 65

The promotion of Turkish officers can hardly be
fairly considered unless it is taken in relation with
that other process which affects so frequently their

—109—

careers, namely, demotion. They have, however, a
scheme of promotion by seniority, and age limit re-
tirement, under which second lieutenants retire at
41. and Field Marshals at 68. Whatever may be the
effect of this penalty upon officers, it is convention-
ally modified by the gentle and sympathetic process
of administration. Pensions are very small, but they
are eternally enduring, and often descend from one
generation to another.

The retrograde progress sometimes made by
Turkish officers, even those of distinction, will be
indicated by a story or two concerning individuals
whose names are associated with recent events.

Nazim Pasha had been minister of war for less
than a year before his assassination. Before he came
into that office he had only recently returned to the
active practice of his chosen profession, as Abdul
Hamid some years before had sent him to Bagdad,
where he carried a hod for a bricklayer for a period of
years. A prominent foreign official told me he would
always regard Nazim's death as untimely, because he
believed so much in his gentle and appreciative dis-
position that he thought that had Nazim lived for
the requisite number of years he would have repaid
a little loan that this foreign official extended to him
about the time he returned from Bagdad. The
official was crossing the Floating Bridge, which is
the Rialto of Constantinople, when he was accosted
by a ragged and unkempt individual who addressed
him in familiar and almost affectionate terms. After
a more careful inspection, he recognized in the
stranger the familiar features and personality of his
erstwhile friend Nazim. The latter told the official
of his arrival just that day in Constantinople from
the enforced and fatiguing sojourn in far off Bagdad.
But as he had not only returned to the Mecca of the
Europeanized Turk, but to his former rank in the

—110—

army, it seemed incumbent upon him to provide him-
self with the outward evidence of his position. The
official loaned Nazim $40.00 with which Nazim thought
he would be able to purchase the uniform of a general
of brigade which he was expected to wear. Although
some years had passed since that time, and Nazim
had repaid the loan, under pressure of subsequent
circumstances he had again negotiated it, and the
official felt that had sufficient years been allotted in
Nazim's career, the loan would finally have been
discharged.

After Nazim's assassination he was succeeded by
Izzet Pasha as Generalissimo. Izzet, in his day had
suffered some of the inconveniences of demotion
that had befallen Nazim, and was sent away from
Constantinople by Abdul Hamid for station in
Damascus, where his duties confined him to a rock
pile. It seems that while Izzet, in his early career,
was the Turkish miHtary attache in Berlin, the
Kaiser knew him favorably and well. Not many
years ago, while on a visit to the Sultan, the Kaiser
mentioned Izzet's name to a friend of the latter, and
it was revealed to the Kaiser that Izzet was then
cracking rock in Damascus, in compliance with the
Sultan's express wishes. Izzet's friend suggested
to the Kaiser that he make a casual but interested
inquiry of the Sultan as to the whereabouts of the
attractive young Ottoman officer whom he had known
while attached to the Sultan's embassy in Berlin.
The Sultan regretted that this distinguished officer
was absent on a somewhat prolonged tour of duty in
a part of the empire so remote as Damascus. Later
during his tour the Kaiser reached Damascus, where
he was greeted by the official representative of the
Sultan in the person of Izzet Pasha, as a general of
brigade, although this high dignitary of the hour
had been but a colonel at the time he had incurred

— Ill—
the displeasure and distrust of the Sultan which sent
him in disgrace to Damascus.

General Staff

The Bulgarian General Staff is a very carefully
selected military hierarchy. Only officers who have
graduated from the military schools of Russia, Italy
and France are eUgible to detail, and then their
subsequent advancement is determined by their
service and efficiency records. They return while in
the lower grades for periods of service with troops,
and many of them, when they attain advanced rank,
come into command of higher units.

The Turkish General Staff is a very exclusive
body, selected nominally on the educational attain-
ments of the officer and his training in foreign schools
and armies, but the usual conditions which affect all
Turkish administration, that of favoritism and family
influences, obtains in this branch of the Turkish
army. Whatever may be the regulations governing
officers of the general staff, the fact is that when
once estabhshed in this preferred situation, they
lose contact with troops and have little or no field
service. Whatever individual accomplishments some
of these officers possess, they were unable to exhibit
them in their late opportunities.

Supply Service

There is no special corps of Bulgarian supply
officers. Details are made from the line after three
years' service with troops followed by a course in a
special school in Sofia. With every division there is
an officer of the Intendance Department. He some-
times has some junior officer assistants, but most of
the work is done by civiUans. What system there is
in the Turkish army I do not clearly understand,

—112—

except that the principle is German and the applica-
tion is Turkish. But one can be morally certain that
the same elements of favoritism and personal relation
determines the details to the supply service.

Pay

The soldier's pay in all Eastern armies is hardly
munificent enough to create the habits of a spend-
thrift; in fact, the schedule seems to be carefully
based on a principle which sturdily encourages the
virtue of frugality. The Bulgarian soldier is paid
$0.20 a month, and the Servian soldier receives $0.30,
while the rate of pay for the Turkish soldier is $0.90
a month. One might think that the Turk is overpaid
as a warrior, but he is not. His munificent stipend
is only promised, and he seldom gets it. Sometimes
his fortune fares well, as it did while the army was
assembled on the Chatalja line, for then he received
his pay regularly, as it was necessary to sweeten his
disposition and suppress his inclination to interest
himself in politics. When I left Constantinople, the
civil list was six months behind in its payment.

Clothing

The color of the Bulgarian soldier's uniform is
hard to describe as it is something of a mixture of
gray and red. It has nothing of the drab or olive
shade, but might be called a brownish gray; a solid
color, about as dark in its density as olive drab. It
looks much the same from a distance and aifords
about the same advantage of invisibility. There is a
collar and cuff facing indicating the various arms of
the service. The blouse is of the ordinary military
form, with dark buttons and standing collar. The
trousers are of the same material as the blouse, baggy
at the knees, without cut to conform to the calf of
the leg. The ofl^icers wear olive drab very similar to

—113—

our own service uniform, but somewhat lighter and
a little more of the fawn color, with a very conspicu-
ous shoulder strap. Both the Turkish officers and
soldiers wear the English service olive drab made by
an English firm in Smyrna, of very good woolen
cloth of domestic manufacture.

Head Dress

The Bulgarian officer and soldier and every other
official in Bulgaria wears, ever and always without
exception, the Russian cap.

The Turkish soldier is somewhat hampered by
his religious tenets in the selection of suitable head-
dress for campaign, as the Mohammedan must wear
on his head some sort of a device that has no rim or
visor to prevent him from making his prayers by
touching his forehead to the carpet. As a Moslem
wears a fez in civil life, and wears it all the time,
indoors or out, asleep or awake, when he becomes a
soldier he must wear a head gear that will enable him
to observe these conditions.

Formerly the Turkish army wore the familiar
red fez with a black tassel, but when the army was
reformed some years ago and put into olive drab, the
red fez was changed to the same color. Later an-
other device was adopted, which gave better service
in campaign, and was made of the same grayish ma-
terial as the overcoat. This device, which most of
the Turkish soldiers wore in the late war, was based
in construction on the principle of the turban which
enabled it to conform to religious requirements. It
consisted of a hood, much like that of our military
overcoat with very long ear-laps which are conven-
tionally worn wrapped around the head, but which,
for purposes of protection, were lowered and wrapped
around the neck.

—114—
Footwear

The most interesting and important element of
the clothing of both the Bulgarian and the Turkish
armies, was the footwear. The Bulgarian peasant
wore a combination of layers of felt in larger or
smaller pieces, wrapped around his feet and legs,
with the sole of the foot covered with a rawhide san-
dal, which combination he calls an "opanken.*' This
device was employed almost exclusively by the foot
troops of the Bulgarian army, although the mounted
troops were furnished boots. In their regular mili-
tary service the boot is part of the uniform of all the
mounted soldiers but there seemed to be a scarcity
of supply in the Second War. The soldiers who came
from villages displayed their urbanity by showing a
preference for boots to the "opanken. " The peasants
who regularly wore this footgear were very well
pleased with it as it had many advantages. The
layers of wrapping could be increased to suit conditions
of winter weather, although it afforded no protection
against the wet. There was a compensation in this
disadvantage, however, because if the soldier's feet
became wet, and he had a chance to seek shelter, he
could dry them at once by inverting the cloth and
wrapping around his foot the dry portion, that had
served as a legging, so as to permit the portion that
had become wet to dry by evaporation when wrapped
around the calf. But the greatest advantage this
footwear had served was the preparation of the Bul-
garian for military service by saving his feet from
the deforming influence of modern shoes. As a class
the feet of the Bulgarians were absolutely normal.

The Turkish army, in its reformation, had adopted
as a uniform shoe, a low brogan of the type of for-
mer issues in our own service with which an olive
drab woolen puttee leggin was worn. This imposed
something of a very marked departure from the ordi-

—115—

nary habits of the Turkish peasant, whose footgear
conformed to Oriental requirements. The Oriental's
normal state is an indoor one in which he wears no
shoes. When he goes out of doors he sHps on a tem-
porary foot covering, much ^s a lady, who goes out
to a party in winter time, covers her slippers with
goloshes. So, when the Turk has to adopt a footgear
for continuous out-of-door service, he is a bit out of
his element. The Turkish soldier simply loves slip-
pers and when he reverts to them with his puttee
leggings it makes rather a weird combination.

Rations

The Bulgarian ration when written on paper is
all right in every element of food value. You may
be satisfied to know that it consists of nine well-bal-
anced components, with sufficient fuel value to meet
the physiological demands of able-bodied soldiers en-
gaged in a hard day's work. The provision for mak-
ing substitutions can be so arranged that it compares
favorably with the ration of an American soldier.
No doubt, in time of peace, this ration is supplied, or
at least as much of it as the Bulgarian soldier wishes
to eat, but in time of war all that it promises to the
dietary of the soldier is not fulfilled. But with all
its shortcomings the soldier does not feel that he has
been cheated so long as he is supplied with bread.

In civil life the peasant's principal ration com-
ponent is bread of a very good quality, and very
ample quantity, supplemented by a meaty element
usually in a form of cheese, but occasionally in the
form of real meat. When he gets meat it is almost
invariably mutton. When the peasant is enduring
military service he never expects a bit more than he
gets at home, and is satisfied with less. The hungry
soldier without food, when he makes inquiry about
his expected ration, only uses the word ''bread", for

—116—

this is all he actually demands, although whenever a
favorable opportunity offers he is sometimes bold
enough to expect cheese or meat. The meat comes
to him in form of mutton on the hoof, and he always
understands the difficulties of producing this article
of diet when it is not forthcoming. If his bread is
ample, he does not complain. When the fortunes of
war favor him and he has something like his full ra-
tion, and a reasonable chance to expect a little recrea-
tion, he does not seek it in alcoholic relaxation, but
searches for peppers and onions with which to satiate
that longing for stimulation that so many other peo-
ple find in alcohol.

I saw hundreds of Bulgarian soldiers during the
time of demobilization, when they were free to roam
about the town and seek some form of recreation
contrasting with the hardships which they had just
escaped on the actual battle line. They did not
celebrate by a method with which we are so familiar,
that involves the saloon as a necessary element, but
they were seen about the market buying peppers and
onions and garlic, and preparing individual messes
brought up to their own delectable culinary standard
by the addition of these savory elements. In Kus-
tendil as many as 40,000 men passed through that
town and I saw only one drunken Bulgarian soldier.
Perhaps *' drunk*' is too severe a term to apply to
him, for he was only pleasantly enough intoxicated
to recognize me, as I was about to pass him on a
narrow path, with a very precise military salute,
and to show his willingness to allow me the right of
way by jumping into a mud puddle.

The ration of the Turkish soldier, as set down
on paper, is copied from the German army, with a
few local flourishes added which promises the soldier
some of the particular components he likes the most,
but which the Germans do not care about. The

—117—

sanitary inspector of the army at Chatalja told me
with great assurance and with apparent satisfaction
that the ration of the Turkish army had a greater
calorific Vfelue than that of any other European
army. In practice, however, there was little more
ever found in the Turkish soldier's mess than bread
and mutton, but under very favorable conditions some
vegetables were added which permitted the meat to
be rendered in the form of a delectable stew. The
Turkish peasant's principal element of food is bread,
although he consumes a great deal of rice. Perhaps
a form of rice cooked with meat and condiments,
which is called *'pilaf/' together with a peculiarly
curdled milk called ''yourgert,'' is the customary diet
of the Turkish peasant. At home, both the Turkish
and Bulgarian peasants have but one hot or cooked
meal each day and that is served about noon. The
day is begun with a cup of tea or coffee, with a
permissible addition of bread and cheese, and is
ended usually with bread alone. I have seen this
diet prepared regularly in a Turkish hospital for six
months.

Kitchens

The Bulgarian army was equipped with a limited
number of portable kitchens of the Austrian army
type, with a capacity of about 250 men per wagon.
I saw only one of these, but it seemed to be a very
satisfactory device, and it might well be employed in
some form in our own service.

At the beginning of the war it is said the Turkish
army was extravagantly supplied with all sorts of
appliances that any agent of military goods in
Europe had to sell them. The purchasing officers
had been very much attracted by the liberal com-
missions the European dealers were able to offer,
and they devoted a great deal of energy to their

—US-
purchases. The army had all the mechanical devices,
in some quantity, that any army had ever used.
Among other things they had field bakeries. Mah-
moud Moukhtar Pasha, to whose campaign-in Thrace
I have referred, accounts for two field bakeries in
his train at the beginning of the campagin.

The Bulgarian kitchens in the field were very
simple. Each company was supplied with three
large and one small soup kettles; the latter were
used for company, platoon and squad messing, and
the larger vessels were employed when a company
mess was conducted. Two of the two larger copper
kettles were of the conventional wash boiler type,
and they were used on pack animals to carry the
mess, which was always prepared in the form of a
stew, for the troops when they were in an advanced
position and it was necessary to set up the kitchen in
the rear. I saw one Bulgarian kitchen down in the
valley where water and wood were available, which
prepared the mess for a regiment that was in posi-
tion on a mountain crest about a mile or a mile and
a half away, and from there the stew was carried up
to the troops once a day on pack animals.

The Turkish field kitchens which I saw on the
Chatalja line would hardly be identified as such by
one whose military observations had been confined
to an experience with American troops. There was
frequently no shelter more than a small tent or
shack for stores, and a cauldron or two placed in the
ground so that wood could be burnt under them.
At mess time the small copper pots were brought
from companies for the food to be issued to the
squads. The Turkish soldier carried a wooden spoon,
the handle of which was stuck into the top of his
puttee legging, so that it was always under his eye
and ready for instant service.

I saw a Bulgarian field bakery at Kustendil

—119—

which illustrates the manner in which the Bulgarians
handle their food problem in the field. As they
have no equipment of this kind that pretends in any
way to be portable, the bakery was set up out of
material that was found in the town with the em-
ployment of the skilled laborers of the locality and
but little assistance from the supply department of
the army. It consisted of a rough shed twenty feet
wide and 150 feet long, along one side of which was
built twelve brick ovens about ten by fifteen feet.
The floor of the ovens was laid on the ground and
trenches were dug in front of the ovens for the
bakers to stand in. There were two troughs pro-
vided for each oven, and racks were erected at the
side of each oven to hold the loaves of dough until
they were ready to be baked. One qualified baker
was assigned to each oven and all the other person-
nel were ordinary details from the troops. There
were two non-commissioned officers in charge, one of
whom, in this particular case, was a gentleman of
some educational qualifications. He was a graduate
of the University of Brussels, and had intended to
return for a course in political economy. It was he
who gave me the data. The personnel numbered
168. They worked in night and day shifts. The
proper number of men were assigned to assist the
baker at each oven, the baker acting only as
superintendent in the preparation of the dough, all
the manual work being done by the baker^s as-
sistants; but he personally attended to the firing of
the oven and the actual baking of the bread. The
dough was carefully weighed to make a loaf of one
kilogram. This was the ration for one day. No
pans were used. The bread was transferred from
the troughs to the ovens on boards, and then placed
on the brick floor of the oven for baking. The ovens
were fired eight times in twenty-four hours. At the

120—

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Z3»

ID

3"

^

—121-

time of my visit the plant was running at more than
25,000 two-pound loaves per day. It had an ordi-
nary daily capacity of 35,000 loaves, which could
have been increased under pressure. It took three
or four hours from dough to bread. The bakery
was constructed in five days.

The Bulgarians also used hardtack in about the
form in which we know it, which they called military
biscuit. Six of these were tied in a bundle and sealed
with a red seal, providing an emergency ration which
could only be opened by the soldier on special and
specific orders. Every Bulgarian town has a village
bakery as no Bulgarian family bakes its own bread.
They find it too expensive, as the fuel economy is
greater in community baking. The troops in march-
ing depend largely on the baking facilities of the vil-
lages when they do not construct special field bakeries.
I saw many of the village bakeries making hard
bread. It seemed to be an art that most of the Bul-
garian bakers were skilled at. Many of the bakeries
in the villages were left in the hands of women, who
seemed able to conduct them with great energy and
efficiency in the absence of their husbands.

Arms— The Rifle

The rifle of the Bulgarians was the Mannlicher
of 8 mm. caliber. The Servian rifle was a Mauser of
7 mm. caliber. The Greek rifle was a Mannlicher of
6.5 mm. caliber. These small arms used a blunt or
ogival projectile, the difference in caliber being suffi-
cient to be distinguished by careful comparison. The
Turkish army was equipped with the Mauser of 7
mm. caliber. The projectile was different from the
others in that it had a sharp nose. It seemed to be
the consensus of opinion that the sharp nosed bullet,
under certain ballistic conditions, caused the more
humane wound on account of its smaller puncture

—122—

but, as its center of gravity in much nearer the base
than in the blunt pointed bullet, it had a disposition
to tumble more readily under certain conditions,
thereby making a much more mutilating wound.

Bayonet

The Bulgarian bayonet was of the short type.
The experience of the Bulgars in the late wars has
satisfactorily confirmed their judgment in the selec-
tion of a short rather than a long bayonet. They do
not believe that there is any advantage in the reach
of a longer arm, and they are convinced that the
sturdiness and leverage qualities of the short bayonet
makes it superior. The Bulgarians always preferred
to fix bayonets before going into action, as they
feared the loss of time and the insecurity of attach-
ment, if bayonets were fixed after firing began.

The Turkish bayonet was quite long, but I think
it must have been of some advantage to the morale
of the Turkish soldier, in that it made him feel that
he had that much advantage over the Bulgarian. I
don't know what the Turkish ordnance experts think
of this equipment after their late experience.

Ammunition

The Bulgarian soldier carried 150 rounds of am-
munition in leather boxes on the belt, (two in front
and one behind), and in the haversack. There were
30 rounds in each of the two boxes in front, 40 rounds
in the box behind, and 50 in the haversack. There
were 50 rounds on pack animals, and 100 in the divi-
sion train, making 300 rounds per man in all.

The Servian soldier carried 135 rounds on his
person, 60 in the ammunition wagon and 100 in the
division park; 295 in all.

The Turkish soldier carried 150 rounds on his per-
son. The army was provided with a great number

—123—

of battalion ammunition wagons of German type, of
light structure, short coupled, with a body in the
form of a large box, with compartments to hold the
ammunition in baskets. They were to be drawn by
horses, but were not employed on account of the
scarcity of these animals. In Constantinople, during
the war, there were several arsenals and depots, in
which hundreds of these wagons could be seen parked.
Bullock carts were used in the field, instead of this
specially designed equipment.

Equipment

Pack

I do not know what the Field Service Regulations
prescribed in the way of the composition of the sol-
dier's pack in any of the armies. I saw a lot of
Turkish, a lot of Bulgarian, and a lot of Servian sol-
diers in heavy marching order, and there is not much
difference in the appearance of the pack. They ap-
peared to prefer the blanket roll, and they were all
normally supplied with blankets. The Turks and
Bulgarians carried a haversack much like that of our
old infantry equipment, and the Servian soldiers in
addition carried knapsacks. All carried the canteen.
The Bulgarian used his haversack largely for his
food, and small articles, and carried the rest of his
belongings in his blanket roll, which contained the
occasional shelter half. The regulation weight of the
Bulgarian soldier's pack is 32 Kg. (70 lbs,)

Shelter Tent

The Bulgarian and Turkish shelter tents were of
rectangular pieces of canvas, making about the same
size of tent as our old pattern without the triangular

—124—

flap which in it formed the rear wall. The shape of
this shelter half enabled it to be used in the forma-
tion of large tent units as was seen in every Turkish
camp. The Turks lost most all of their conical tents
in their campaign with the Bulgarians, but there
seemed to be a very liberal supply of shelter tents,
which they buttoned together to make into tents of
larger form. The shelter tent poles of the Turkish
equipment was particularly good because they were
made of hard wood, with sockets and ferrules of
turned brass on either end, so that several poles
could be screwed together into quite a length. In
this way a tent pole could be made which would sup-
port a large area of canvas formed by buttoning to-
gether a number of shelter half pieces.

Shelter in the Field

The Bulgarian soldier in camp had no tentage
except the shelter half he carried on his person. The
officers had individual cubical tents with pointed
roof, with a very light center pole, somewhat longer
than the four side poles. In the campaign in Thrace
the Turkish army had a great many conical tents for
camps, but the Bulgarians got the most of those and
they used them very readily after getting possession.
The Bulgarians suffered many hardships on the
Chatalja line during the hard winter for want of
heavy tentage. Many suffered from frost-bite and
a number were frozen; many might have perished if
they had not been fortunate enough to get so much
shelter from the Turks. Later, in the 2d war, after
most of the Turkish heavy tentage was expended and
many of the soldiers were without shelter tents, they
built huts of brush. Even some of the field hospitals
made up their shortage of tentage by the construc-
tion of brush huts.

—126—
Intrenching Tools

The Bulgarians were well supplied with equip-
ment for field intrenching, as each man carried a
tool of some class. Every three men carried a shovel,
and the fourth carried a short-handled pick, or a
hatchet. After the fall of Adrianople, when a great
deal of Turkish equipment fell into the hands of the
Bulgarians and Servians, the utility of the shovel
was so appreciated that each soldier, not equipped
with one of these handy little chest and head pro-
tectors, added one of them to his outfit on his own
initiative.

I was told repeatedly by Bulgarian soldiers that
they had employed their shovels as head shelters, in
advancing under artillery fire, first at their own in-
stance, and later, by instruction of their officers.
The shovel had no special virtue over our own, ex-
cept that it was sharpened on one edge, and this
proved very valuable in making personal shelter, as
much of that shelter was formed out of brush. The
Servians carried a man's-size long-handled pick,
which did not seem to be as much in the way as one
might think.

The Turkish intrenching tools were about the
same, but I am not sure how they were distributed
among the men.

Transport— With Troops

The Bulgarians on a peace or war footing had
no transportation to be used, either in field or supply
trains, as a part of the equipment of the army. They
depended upon carefully prepared plans for impro-
vising their trains, by the employment in the various
districts of mobilization, of the peasants' wagons,
most of which were bullock carts. The civil admin-
istration was employed to assemble this transporta-

—126—

tion where it was called for. The bullock carts were
divided into columns, and two non-commissioned of-
ficers and a few armed men, as guards, were assigned
a certain number of carts, and the train was complete.
The wagons drawn by horses, as long as the supply
lasted, went to the field trains. The peasant owner
accompanied his own outfit, and this plan assured
good attention to the stock.

The regulations provided, for each battalion, four
pack animals for ammunition and one pack animal to
carry cooking utensils and the baggage of the officers.
I think all regiments usually succeeded in getting a
wagon for each company. Horse drawn wagons were
small, as were the animals, and they could not possi-
bly carry more than a thousand pounds under favor-
able conditions. I saw a number of battalions en-
train at the time of the demobilization and each
company seemed to have one small two-horse wagon.

The Turks had attempted to provide a special
field and supply train, and had in service a great
many specially constructed wagons of an uniform type.
They were all of such size that they could be drawn
by two horses, but as they had difficulty in finding
the horses, they practically had to adopt the method
of the Bulgarians.

Motor Transportation

Automobiles seemed to be essential to the head-
quarters of the larger commands, which were liberally
supplied with them. General Tochef, commanding
the 5th Army, had his headquarters at Kustendil,
ten miles from the center of the line, which he could
approach over a splendid macadamized road. In an-
other direction the headquarters of the 4th Army lay
fifteen or twenty miles beyond the reach of a good
road and automobiles could not be used for personal
transportation.

—127—
Motor Trucks

According to the account I obtained from the
agent of the Benz Automobile Company in Constan-
tinople, who supplied all the motor transportation,
the Turkish army had forty motor trucks in use at the
beginning of the war. Fifteen of these were in
Adrianople, with large quantities of motor supplies,
and the Bulgars took them all. Three sizes of trucks
were used; two, three, and five ton. The oldest had
been in use for four years aad was still doing duty.
They were used only about Constantinople and on
occasional short lines of communication where there
were good roads. The Bulgars had a few motor
trucks besides the fifteen they had captured at Adrian-
ople. They were of very great service in the second
war because of the number of good macadamized
roads by which they were able to connect their lines
on the southern frontier, with the railroad. But it
was not possible to employ them in any way except
on good roads.

Motor trucks were used to some extent in the
transport of wounded from those evacuation hospitals
that were connected by macadamized roads with the
railroad, but they proved to be somewhat unsuited
for this purpose, which is quite contrary to what one
might naturally imagine. When I interviewed a num-
ber of patients by the roadside without much to ac-
count for their presence, they told me they were there
because the driver of an automobile truck had an-
swered their prayers to be placed out on the road
rather than to be subjected to the pain of further
jolting. They had concluded they would fare better
by taking their chances of being picked up by the
bullock carts than continuing with the more rapid
transportation that the motor truck afforded. With
all their humility, the bullock carts still have their

—128—

advantages. The difficulties they overcame in the
Bulgarian advance from Kirk Kilisse might not have
been accomplished by more modern forms of trans-
portation. It is very likely that the bullock carts in
the present state of development of Bulgarian mili-
tary resources are quite superior to any other form of
transportation for her army.

Fifth Lecture

Some Sanitary Observations

T ARRIVED in Constantinople November 3, 1912, or
^ three days after the formation of the Chatalja
lines following the defeat of the Turkish army in the
field. About two weeks later the Bulgarian assault
on the Chatalja line, which occupied three days, was
made and failed. By this successful defense Con-
stantinople was saved. The wounded from the field
campaign were still coming to Constantinople at the
time of my arrival, and an epidemic of cholera, which
had begun its rage in the Turkish troops of the
Chatalja lines, was acknowledged about this time in
Constantinople. The victims of the disease were
arriving in the outskirts of Constantinople at San
Stephano at the rate of several hundred a day from
the railhead of the defenses at Heydemkui. While
the cholera camp that was established at San Stephano
had become known to the world as a great pest-hole,
and while thousands of sick were at first without
shelter and were never well housed, two things must
be said in extenuation of the harsh criticisms of the
Turkish administration. First, the Ottoman Empire
was in great peril and all the resources of trans-
portation and supply were desperately needed and
duly impressed in the service of strengthening the
defenses of the capital; and, second, such expedients
as were employed, though harsh and abrupt, were

129

—ISO-
efficient in saving Constantinople from a cholera
invasion. All trains carrying soldiers from the front,
whether sick from any cause, or stragglers or de-
serters, were impounded together without shelter
and treated alike. The sick were not separated from
the well and all were sheltered as facilities became
available. Later, many cases were taken to the
mosques in Constantinople where a careful and
efficient guard system kept all the soldiers separate
from the civilian population and saved the latter
from infection.

From my own experience, in charge of a cholera
camp at San Stephano, there were about 600 soldiers
under guard in a compound where all were sheltered
in permanent buildings, sheds or tents and probably
200 were not infected. Of the remaining 400, all were
undoubtedly cholera cases. Though 200 of them
died, the death rate diminished from fifty per day to
one per day in the first ten days of my service.
This diminunition in the death rate was in direct ratio
to the progress of rough but substantial sanitary
measures. At this time I will not presume to esti-
mate accurately the number of cases of cholera in
the Turkish army, and I am sure there can never be
any reliable statistical data prepared, but there must
have been more than 10,000 deaths. The mortality
was about 50 per cent in my cases, but I believe that
the rate is relative to the conditions under which the
cases are treated. I believe that, with the same
virulence of the infecting organism, the same re-
sistance of the patients, and the same conditions of
shelter, sanitation and treatment as are generally
available in the treatment of typhoid fever, for
instance, the mortality of cholera might be no
greater than that of typhoid fever. In other words,
if cholera were treated'with the same care and under
the same conditions as typhoid fever is treated to

—131—

establish its best mortality statistics, the mortality
in cholera — in some epidemics, at least — would not
be greater than that in typhoid fever.

My service in Constantinople, in an improvised
military hospital, covered a period of six months,
with an admission of 500 surgical cases. I was act-
ing there in the capacity of chief surgeon of the
local chapter of the American Red Cross Society,
which financed our establishment and we assumed
complete charge of 120 beds which we found occupied
by wounded. This provisional hospital, known as Tash
Kishla, the last military hospital to be established,
was filled with the sick and wounded last to arrive in
Constantinople from the defeated army.

During the activities on the Chatalja line we
received some new patients, and later, after hos-
tilities were resumed, following the armistice on
February 3, 1913, received some more patients.
After that time all our patients were received by
transfer from other and better hospitals where more
active services were maintained. In fact Tash
Kishla became the dumping ground or clearing house
of the military hospital system of Constantinople, so
that the cases we received in the last months were
the class of old infections or convalescents which
had lost their surgical interest and were transferred
to us from other hospitals to make room for their
more interesting cases. It may be observed, in this
connection that the Turkish medical service in
Constantinople was conducted with the same enter-
prise and surgical zeal that sometimes characterizes
hospital administration in more enlightened countries.

It is naturally incumbent upon a surgeon with
any pretention to professional efficiency or scientific
accomplishment, when he has completed a service of
any kind, to prepare a report in which statistics are
compiled with an exactness and precision that ex-

—182—

tends into several decimal points, from which he
may draw conclusions for the instruction of his
colleagues. In the surgery of civil life such pro-
cesses can only be commended, for they may be of some
professional value and can hardly be fraught with
any danger. The same may be said of the surgery
of war, except that the conclusions drawn from an
individual service, however active, may represent an
experience confined to some local phase of military
activity or administration to which the cause, char-
acter and frequency of wounds is peculiar.

I have seen reports of two eminent and distin-
guished surgeons, with the character of whose re-
spective services I am personally familiar. These
reports carry an accurate and interesting account of
their special work which no doubt will be of exceed-
ingly great professional value and will find permanent
place in medical annals. But I believe that their
personal experience or that of any other operating
surgeon, in the course of any war, is not sufficient to
enable them to draw conclusions that will establish
reliable statistics on the wounds of war because such
can only be prepared from the reports of all phases
and conditions of the military activity of all the cam-
paigns of the war. The character and cause of the
wounds, admitted to military hospitals must always
be carefully considered in relation to the particular
form of military activity from which they have re-
sulted. In different actions there must be a variable
preponderance of wounds from the different arms
by which the wounds were inflicted and the course of
these wounds, thus received, must be determined
largely by the nature of the campaign and by its suc-
cesses or reverses, which determine the condition of
neglect to which wounds are subjected either at in-
cidence or in subsequent course.

With this preface and caution I will presume to

—133—

give a brief numerical statement of my own exper-
ience at Tash Kishla hospital In 317 gun shot wounds
there were 32% shrapnel and 68% rifle wounds. In
another group of 68 cases in the same hospital, that
came under my observation, but without my admin-
istration, there were 37% shrapnel wounds and 63%
rifle wounds. These ratios, however, apply only to
these particular groups of cases, which, from the
circumstances of their collection at this particular
place, will give a greater proportion of shrapnel
wounds than occurred in the particular battle in
which they were received, because many of them
came to us for the reason that they were old infected
cases and infection undoubtedly occurs with a great
deal more frequency in shrapnel than in rifle wounds.
In Constantinople there is a Turkish military
hospital in Stamboul, known as Giilhani, which is
under the direction of the German Professor Weiting
Pasha, who has held his position as medical instruc-
tor in the Turkish army for 12 years. This hospital
enjoyed the advantage of location at the terminus of
the line of railways which led into Constantinople, so
that hospital trains could be stopped nearby to permit
patients to be carried by litter directly into the hos-
pital. The advantage of this location brought to this
service, at all the stages of the war, the more seriously
wounded cases, which were retained until convales-
cence was established; when they were transferred
to make room for other serious cases. The service
here was undoubtedly the most active in the city,
with always a greater proportion of seriously wounded
cases in the wards. The lighter cases were only ad-
mitted when the supply of serious cases had fallen
below the capacity of the hospital. So it may be said
that while the statistical reports of even this hospital
will be of undoubted surgical value, they will not show
the relative proportion of the wounds of war in re-

—134—

spect to their gravity course and relative frequency
of their causation.

I have here a table showing such statistics from
almost 1000 cases as Professor Wei ting Pasha had
prepared at Giilhani Hospital at the time of my de-
parture from Constantinople, but he warned me that
his statistics would not show the frequency, charac-
ter, and result of wounds as they occurred through-
out the war.

Wounds of the Extremities

(Exclusive of head, thorax and abdomen) ^^^r,ri

Rifie

Shrapnel Total

Flesh Wounds

317

129 446

Penetrating

8%

23%

Perforating

92%

77%

Aseptic .

82%

72%

Infected

18%

28%

Deaths

4

2 equals 1.3%

Rifle

Shrapnel

Joint Wounds

146

55 102

Aseptic

75%

69%

Infected

25%

31%

Deaths

7

5 equals 6%

Rifle

Shrapnel

Bone Wounds

254

95 349

Aseptic

68%

29%

Rifle

Shrapnel

Infected

32%

71%

Deaths

16

11 equals 8% 349

TOTAL

117=71%

279=29% 996

\ Aseptic

.--- 76%

-- 58%

"i Infected.

-.-- 24%

-_. 42%

Total deaths:

45 or 4.5% caused by sepsis, gas bacillus

infection and tetanus.

Typhus was epidemic among the Turkish troops
at all times. I visited a hospital on the Chatalja Line

— i35—

where the cases were segregated, as many of them
came from a certain portion of the line which this
hospital served. An interesting story with some re-
lation to the means of transmission of typhus was
told me there. A medical officer from this hospital
went to Constantinople and, in the house of a friend,
discarded his underclothing in theprocess of personal
renovation. These garments were appropriated and
utilized by his undiscriminating friend who died, af-
ter several days from typhus, without other cases
occurring in the neighborhood.

At the beginning of the Second War I went to
Bulgaria for another season of professional activity.
Time will not permit more than a reference to my
field service there in the Evacuation Hospital of 700
beds capacity on the Macedonian frontier. All our
cases came to us after a four day journey in bull carts.
In my first day's service my division, conducted by
an English-speaking Bulgarian reserve medical of-
ficer and myself, which admitted half of the cases,
received nearly 500 wounded which were treated in
some sort of a way before they were passed into the
wards. In four weeks my division admitted 2,000
patients, all wounded, which was about one half of
the total number admitted in that time. I was sur-
prised to note the comparatively few major opera-
tions that were indicated in this number of 4,000 cases.
There were not more than 20 cases taken to the op-
erating room for anesthaesia and formal preparation.
I am inclined to believe that something like this pro-
portion of niajor operations will hold in a group of
cases which include all of the casualties occurring in
one military zone. Formal surgical interference
should be delayed until a base hospital is reached,
where the best skill and facilities are available and
where the convalescence of the patient can be estab-
lished or the autopsy performed. The cases admitted

—136—

to hospitals in advanced positions deserve the max-
imum of surgical judgment with the minimum of
surgical activity.

Abdominal cases were of two classes— with and
without peritonitis. The first class uniformly suc-
cumbed to operation and the second needed no inter-
ference. I am confident that the military rule of
non-interference in abdominal cases in the field is
correct and should be applied. Cranial wounds did
not do well after operation, and I believe better re-
sults would have followed if the most of them had
been sent back to the base without {formal operation
in the field.

In our cases there seemed to be an unusual pro-
portion of compound fractures of the thigh compared
with the humerus. These cases all deserve the most
conservative treatment and immediate transporta-
tion to the rear. Plaster dressings were used with-
out rhyme or reason. I believe that any medical
service in the field will not suffer if plaster of paris
be not supplied.

The first aid dressing and its indication you know
about. Its employment in the field justified its rep-
utation for keeping clean a great many wounds to
which it was applied.

The therapeutic agents most indicated and em-
ployed were iodine, benzine, alcohol, balsam of peru
and a nascient oxygen preparation, Merck's 'Terhy-
dror' which has three times the strength of the of-
ficial hydrogen peroxide and is therefore three times
as efficient in the same bulk. Iodine has its uses and
is the most valuable of all antiseptics in military sur-
gery, but its recent rise to fame had so impressed
the Bulgarian surgeons that their gunshot wounds
often had a hard run for the terminal stages of con-
valescence against the persistent and heroic iodine
treatment.

—137—
Sanitation — Personal

There is little to be said about the personal
hygiene of the Bulgarian soldier because he went
along with the army just about as he had done in
civil life, and the conditions under which his military
service was spent were hard and exacting. He had
little else to think about other than the mere problem
of his existence which he solved in his primitive way.
For the Turk, something more may be said because
his religious forms prescribe a bath on Thursday, as
he goes to the Mosque on Friday for his special
weekly devotion, and at any other time that he says
his prayers with proper formality he must wash his
feet. As a good many prayers are said between the
days of formal worship, thefe is a constant alertness
on the part of the Turk to perform this libation. The
Moslem's religiously prescribed method of attending
to the other necessary demands of nature contributes
directly to his personal sanitation.

Camps

I saw all the camps of the army at Chatalja
during the second armistice and, at that time, a sur-
prisingly great number of sanitary principles were
observed. Sinks were all properly removed from
the tents and a guard was placed over them, to en-
force the sanitary orders. The penalty for any dere-
liction was flogging, and I was told that it was not
often necessary to administer this punishment. The
water supply of these camps, which was very widely
distributed, was all posted so as to indicate the quality
of the water: w^hether potable, suitable for animals
or washing clothes, or use prohibited. At the base
hospital at the center of the line, there was a labora-
tory where water was examined. One sanitary com-
pany had its drinking water kept in the keg in which

—138—

it had been transported from its source by pack
animals and from which the water was drawn off by
a spigot. I saw a picket line that was clean enough
for a sanitary inspector in our own army at a maneu-
ver camp. The manure sometimes did not reach the
ground before it was carried off by an orderly to the
nearby incinerator where fire was said to be constantly
burning. Everything was scrupulously clean, as
there was absolutely no conscience on the part of the
officers in keeping their men at work policing camp
when there was no other duty to perform.

Medical Service with Organizations

The Bulgarian medical service with organizations
was generally deficient, both in personnel and equip-
ment. There was a regimental medical service,
which gave a medical officer to each of the four bat-
talions in a regiment, but in one regiment, I know,
the medical service was in the hands of a dentist and
two medical students. Bulgaria accepted her sani-
tary organization rather heroically as it was not pos-
sible to bring it up to the more elaborate standard of
modern armies, because there was not sufficient medi-
cal personnel in the country to permit it. There are
only 650 doctors in Bulgaria. Two hundred of these
are in the regular military establishment, but all of
the others are taken from civil life, conscripts to
military service, during the war. There is a system
of subordinate medical service in Bulgaria which is
something like that of the '*practicante'' of the Span-
ish countries. These partly qualified medical attend-
ants were called 'Teldchers*' in their civil practice,
and all of them capable of performing military duty
were absorbed in some capacity by the army.

I saw one regimental hospital that seemed quite
well enough equipped, in personnel and material, to
do fairly good work. It was one mile behind the line

—139—

of the regiment to which it belonged, and down in
the valley at the foot of the hill on which the regi-
ment was placed. It was close enough to have some
of i ts transportation destroyed by shells . A telephone
line connected it with the regimental headquarters
on the hill and an operator was kept constantly at
the telephone.

Turkish field service organization was superb on
paper as it is copied from the German army in almost
its entirety. In its application was its shortcomings.
It was able to do practically nothing in the first war
in the campaign in Thrace, because in this disorgan-
ized army medical officers lost their equipment, and
the Turkish medical officer has very little resource
when he is taken away from his formal relation with
his duties.

Field Medical Service

The Bulgarian field medical service was entirely
insufficient. There were only nine organizations that
were called field hospitals and two large evacuation
hospitals in their army organization. When the war
began, however, hospitals were organized in some of
the larger towns and went into service as military
hospitals. On the whole, the medical department
did well with what resources they had at hand.

The Turkish field medical service was well or-
ganized on paper. They had an abundance of ma-
terial, but the great disorder attending the retreat
of their army prevented its employment and resulted
in its loss. I have this information from the sanitary
inspector general of the Turkish army.

Evacuation of Battlefields

My late observations in the evacuation of battle-
fields has not extended from the firing line to the
base hospitals. I have only seen the results of the

—140—

work performed at the first aid stations, regimental
and field hospitals. Cases first came under my
notice in an evacuation hospital, twenty miles in a
direct line, but forty miles by road behind the
battlefield, from which four days were required for
their transportation to this hospital. I know some-
thing of the manner in which the first stage of this
work was performed by the direct testimony of those
who did it, and from the inspection of regimental
and field hospitals during an armistice. The diffi-
culties under which all this work was carried on in a
rough country, with part of it without roads, was
very great. The amount of equipment at hand in
some instances was very meager, although in other
locations it was quite ample. In one army, where
the war was one of position, and where material
could be gathered in abundance, on account of a
railroad terminal within a few miles of the center of
the position, the work was carried on without much
defect and in some instances in a very satisfactory
way. In another army, which was moving con-
stantly in the field, hospital bases were only reached
over improvised roads, and the work of caring for the
wounded was attended by incomparably greater diffi-
culties. In the latter case the regimental hospitals
consisted of little more equipment than could be
carried on a sanitary personnel and there was abso-
lutely no shelter except what could be constructed
from brush.

Every Bulgarian battalion was supplied a light
two-horse wagon, with a very small bed, which
would haul one recumbent patient. This vehicle
was given up to the sanitary service, to be employed
as roads would permit. The field hospitals were
some distances from the rear, but their position was
determined by the topography of the country which
often gave no alternative in location. The trans-

—141—

portation facilities for the wounded, while they
consisted solely of bullock wagons, were not as bad
as one might think, because, in their plodding pace,
these lumbering vehicles on rough, impassable roads
were much better than any other form of transpor-
tation. Their structure is somewhat flexible and
whenever the animals feel the resistance of an
obstruction their pull becomes more steady and
causes smoother riding, no doubt, than traction of
any other kind.

In any army in the field, it should be understood
that the wounded man can never be cared for as he
would be in the hands of friends or under conditions
that are provided by the public in civil life. Only a
small portion of military resources can be diverted
to the care of casualties from the real function of pro-
ducing military strength. Casualties are bound to
occur, at times in greater number than can be cared
for with the best sanitary equipment an army can
afford. The wounded soldier under the very best con-
ditions is a ''poor devil out of luck,'' and all of those
responsible for his care should understand the princi-
ples upon which the evacuation of battlefields are
based and they must be able to reconcile themselves
to the many unhappy conditions that are bound to
result. The effort of a sanitary department at the
front is directed primarily to a protective dressing
and the removal of the casualties and not to their
further treatment. Only the rough measures that
can be employed to protect the wounded from further
accident are possible, and all of the military personnel,
both in the combatant department and in the sanitary
corps, should have this understanding, so that they
may all play their proper and appropriate parts.

Battlefield Casualties

The wounds of the battlefield which do not in

—142—

their incidence invade vital spots or destroy enough
tissue to cause death, sooner or later, while they may
be classed primarily as slight or severe, depend
almost entirely in their course and cure upon their
sterility or infection. The gravity of the infection
(without considering the resistance of the individual
patient) depends upon the character or virulence of
the germ which causes the infection by its growth
in the wound. Some germs, known as the ordinary
germs of suppuration, which may cause large quanti-
ties of pus, do not, by their growth in the tissues,
produce by-products or excreta, which are particularly
poisonous when absorbed. Other germs, however,
when they once begin their growth in a wound,
produce a poison that is so virulent, or so readily
absorbed, that the wound at once becomes grave or
fatal.

There are two common classes of virulent in-
fection of battlefield wounds. The first is caused by
the group of germs, producing by their growth a
gas which is indicated by the gross appearances of
swelling, blisters and a crackling sound on pressure
over an area near or surrounding the injury.
Wounds in which such germs grow are tritely
spoken of by surgeons as "gas-bacillus infections.''
The secondiis caused by the tetanus bacillus, or the
germ of lock-jaw. In wounds of the battlefield these
two kinds of infection are always liable to occur, and
when they do, the mortality hovers around 100 per
cent. These infections occurred in my experiences
in the Balkans with about that mortality, but with
much less frequency than they are being reported
now from the European battlefields. This is to be
expected, however, as the fields being fought over
in Europe are germ-ladened by a population denser
than that of the Balkans.

These germs abound in some localities, and under

—143—

military conditions which prevent the best sanitary
service and they are liable to be transmitted from one
wound to another. So, it follows that in all cases
the prevention of infection is the primary object of
a sanitary service in the treatment of battlefield
wounds.

Rifle Wounds

Rifle wounds are the most frequent of the battle-
field and as the modern small calibre, high velocity,
rifle projectile generally destroys little tissue, if a
vital spot is not invaded a cure may generally be ex-
pected if the wound be not infected. This was my
observation in Constantinople and Bulgaria. It was
particularly so in the wounds of the Turkish army,
because the only patients we had in our hospital were
those who made their way to the rear unaided, ex-
cept by their own efforts or by comrades, and their
wounds were, necessarily not very grave in their in-
cidence.

Shrapnel Wounds

Shrapnel wounds have been the subject of more
general and even professional interest than other
battlefield casualties in recent years. There are only
three characteristics of shrapnel wounds which give
them a separate class: first, multiplicity; second,
slight penetration ; and third, greater laceration than
in rifle wounds, which makes greater susceptibility
to infection. The shrapnel ball does not so often
penetrate vital structures and under conditions favor-
able for treatment, is not so fatal as a rifle ball.

There has been much recent and wild speculation
on the relative frequency of rifle and shrapnel wounds,
sometimes by civil surgeons, who may have seen
considerable service in the treatment of wounds
of war. But in the great majority of instances
their group of cases was selected by the various

—144—

incidents and accidents of the distribution of pa-
tients from the battlefield to the hospitals and they
do not represent all classes and conditions of wounds.
As an example, I may mention one of the most dis-
tinguished civil surgeons of Europe whom I knew in
Constantinople to have the same class of cases that
came under my care. His report as a surgeon, on
the professional aspects of his cases is beyond ques-
tion, but his numerically limited experience could
hardly qualify him to deduce that the preponderence
of shrapnel wounds, in modern wars, has inverted
the old ratio of 10% shrapnels to 90% rifle wounds.
This gentleman was so impressed with this conclusion
that, through his efforts, a resolution was passed by
the Imperial Ottoman Medical Society, calling on the
civilized nations of the world to agree to discontinue
the use of field artillery on account of its capacity for
inhumanly murderous destruction of life in battle.

This surgeon, Prof. Depage of the University of
Brussels, is now on the personal staff of King Albert
with the Belgian army, and with all due respect to
his eminent professional attainments, I believe that
his statistics when compiled after he finishes his
present tragic service, will probably be more valuable
because they will be based on a vastly larger exper-
ience.

In Kustendil there passed through my hospital
most all of the wounds — about 10,000 in number — from
one army, and the proportion of shrapnel to rifle
wounds was about 20 to 80. This is something of an
increase over the ratio of shrapnel to rifle wounds of
older statistics, but the nature of the campaign was
such that the field artillery employed was greater
than the usual proportion engaged in the field of
operations of an army.

—145—
Shell Wounds

Shell wounds include all degrees of lacerations
and destruction of tissues, depending, naturally,
upon the proximity of the victim to the exploding
shell. Their severity, as a class, is always greater
than those resulting from small arms or shrapnel,
but their frequency in comparison might well be
called rare.

Bayonet Wounds

Bayonet wounds are of interest in a military hos-
pital largely because of their infrequency, but this,
in a measure, is due to the fact that a much smaller
percentage of these than any other class of battlefield
wounds reach the hospital or need the surgeon's care.
I saw only a few of them, but in one case I was for-
tunate enough to be able to do an autopsy as the sol-
dier who died under my care was without a diagnosis.
His wound was in the left chest below the arm pit
and the laceration suggested a shell fragment or pos-
sibly a shrapnel ball as its cause. The autopsy re-
vealed a deep penetration, downward, and the stir-
ing up of viscerae as might be expected from the
prying or rotary movement given to the causative
weapon.

Traumatic Gangrene

As this opportunity is unfavorable for a review
of the entire subject of Military Surgery, I will only
mention another surgical condition, namely, the
gangrenes incident to military service. The condi-
tions that are due to the graver and more advanced
forms of infections, in all classes of wounds, may be
passed over, as the type I wish to mention is particu-
larly and peculiarly incident to such military service
as I saw in the Turkish army. It may be called
**traumatic" or ^'constrictive'* gangrene, as it pri-
marially is due to the constriction of the shoes and

—146—

leggings in connection with such injury or trauma-
tism to the feet in hard n^arching that causes the
feet to swell. These cases in the Turkish army, af-
ter the first campaign, were quite numerous.

The Turkish peasant normally wears slippers,
and when he was given shoes and spiral puttee leg-
gings, he had no experience upon which to form any
judgment concerning their use.

After some abuse of the feet from marching in
ill-fitting, water-soaked and,* perhaps, sand or mud-
filled shoes, the feet swelled enough to fill the shoes
to the point of constriction which caused some swell-
ing above the shoe and which the wet and illy applied
spiral legging further constricted. The result was a
partial and then a complete interruption of the circu-
lation, beginning in the skin and tips of toes and
then gradually extending toward the knee as the
condition persisted. I have the authoritive history
of one of my cases who had worn his shoes between
three and four weeks while marching in the rain and
mud by day and sleeping without shelter at night,
because he never could find what he considered a
proper or necessary opportunity to take off his shoes,
namely, a place indoors. In another case, the soldier
said he was kept marching all the time and his officer
prevented him from taking off his shoes as he was
required to keep himself in readiness to march. His
shoes were not removed for more than two weeks.
I do not offer these cases as a general indictment of
the puttee leggings, which I believe to be all right
in its proper use, but only as a most pathetic conse-
quence of its abuse.

These cases presented an interesting surgical
phase, because they were generally not infected, and
if properly treated, natural processes effected a
separation between the dead and living tissue with
only a slight assistance from the surgeon. The line

—147—

of natural demarkatiou was invariably very much
nearer the extremity than a formal amputation would
have made it. Unhappily for a great many of these
unfortunate victims, surgical impatience or some
other non-commendable attribute was responsible for
needless amputations, because the cases were mis-
taken for the gangrene of the ordinary surgical
variety. Some cases were fatally infected by the
operation for this condition which most probably
would have been spontaneously cured by nature and
a little sanitary attention.

Vaso-Motor Gangrene

I saw in Constantinople another type of gangrene
which must have resulted indirectly from the con-
traction of the blood vessels caused by an effect on
the brain by concussion from a high explosive. A
soldier was rendered unconscious by a "great ex-
plosion,'' as he described it, which hurled him many
feet and covered him with much earth and many
bruises, but no open wounds. After slowly regaining
consciousness, his hands and feet remained numb and
gradually became gangrenous, until various portions
of the extremities separated and left the unfortunate
victim with an odd variety of stumps. One hand
was left with only enough digital remnants to give
him gripping power sufficient for him to feed him-
self, and both legs carried short stumps below the
knee.

Appendix

Chronological Table of the Principal Events

of the Balkan Wars
1912

Oct. 8. —Montenegro declared war.
Oct. 13. — Graeco-Serbo-Bulgarian note to Turkey.
Oct. 14. — Montenegrin capture of Touzi.
Oct. 15. —Peace signed between Turkey and Italy.
Oct. 16. — Berane captured by the Montenegrins.
Oct. 17. —Turkey declared war on Bulgaria and Servia, who
accepted the challenge.

Greece declared war on Turkey.
Oct. 18. — Moustafa Pasha captured by Bulgarians.

Elassona occupied by Greeks.
Oct. 20. — Bulgarian advance on Adrianople.
Oct. 21.— Greek landing in Lemnos.
Oct. 22.— Prishtina captured by Servians.
Oct. 23. — Novi Bazar captured by Servians.

Dedeaghadj captured by Bulgarians.

Heavy fighting at Adrianople.
Oct. 24. —Capture of Kirk Kilisse by Bulgarians.

Capture of Koumanovo by Servians.
Oct. 26. — Bombardment of Adrianople.
Oct. 26.— Capture of Uskiib by Servians.
Oct. 27.— Capture of Ishtib by Servians.
Oct. 28.— Capture of Veria by Greeks.
Oct. 29. — Battle in Thrace begun at Bunar Hlssar.
Oct. 30.— Capture of Thasos by Greeks.
Oct. 31. — Rout of the Turks at Lule Bourgas by Bulgarians.

Capture of Ipek by Montenegrins.

Capture of Prizrend by Servians.
Nov. 3.— Capture of Preveza by Greeks.

Bombardment of Shkodra by Montenegrins begun
Nov. 4. — Turkish appeal for mediation.
Nov. 5.— Turks retreat on Chatalja.

International squadron comes to Constantinople.
Nov. 9. —Capture of Salonika by Greeks.
Nov. 13.— Negotiations for an armistice.
148

—149—

Nov. 17. — Bombardment of Chatalja begun.

Montenegrins entered San Giovanni di Medua.
Nov. 18.— Fall of Monastir before Servians.
Nov. 20.— Hostilities suspended at Chatalja.
Nov. 21.— *'Hamidie" torpedoed by Bulgarian flotilla,
Nov. 22. — Mitylene occupied by the Greeks.
Nov. 24.— Scio occupied by Greeks.
Nov. 26. — Ottoman and Bulgarian plenipotentiares meet at

Bakhshaiskeuy.
Nov. 28.— Durazzo occupied by Servians.
Dec. 3. — Armistice signed by Turkey with Bulgaria, Servia

and Montenegro.
Dec. 16.— Peace Conference met in London.
Dec. 16. — Naval engagement outside Dardenelles.
Dec. 20.— Kortcha captured by Greeks.

1913

Jan. 16.— "Hamidie" sinks Greek transport "Makedonia'*

in Syra harbor.
Jan. 17.— Collective Note of Powers to Turkey.
Jan. 18.— Naval battle off Tenedos.

Jan. 22.— Ottoman National Assembly declares for peace.
Jan. 23. — Unionist coup d'Etat; Nazim Pasha killed. Mah-

moud Shevket Pasha Grand Vizier.
Jan. 30. — Ottoman reply to note of Powers delivered.
Feb. 3. — Armistice ended. Bombardment of Adrianople

renewed.
Feb. 10.— Gunboat "Asar-i-Tewfik" stranded in Black Sea.
Feb. 8-10.— Battle of Boulair.
March 6.— Capture of Yanina by Greeks.
March 11. — "Hamidie" sinks Greek transport at S. Giovanni

di Medua.
March 16.— Samos occupied by Greeks.
March 18. — King George I of Greece assassinated.
March 22.— Powers send identical note to Allies.
March 23.— Djavid Pasha surrenders to Servians at Skumbi.
March 26. — Capture of Adrianople by Bulgarians and Servians.
April 2. — Funeral of King George of Greece.
April 16. — Cessation of hostilities at Chatalja agreed on.
April 23. — Shkodra captured by Montenegrins.
May 21.— Peace delegates meet in London.
May 30.— Peace preliminaries signed in London, with Turko-

Bulgarian frontier established on Enos-Media

line.

—ISO-
June 29.— Bulgarians attack Servians in valleys of the Var-
dar, Bregalnitca and Zletovska.

June 30. Greeks crush Bulgarian battalion at Salonika.

July 15. —Roumanians cross the Danube at Rostchuk.

July 18.— Turks advance from Chatalja lines and occupy
Adrianople.

July 30.— Bulgarian Army received orders to supend opera-
tions.

Jul}' 31. — Armistice for four days beginning at 1:00 p.m.,
this day.

Aug 6. — Armistice extended three days from this day.

Aug. 9.— Treaty of Peace signed at Bucharest by Bulgaria,
Roumania. Servia, Montenegro and Greece.

Sept. 29.— Treaty of Constantinople established Turko-
Bulgarian frontier.

Economic Effect of the Results of the War Upon the Resources of
the Ottoman Empire

While this observation may be a little out of sequence, I
have the data on such good and reliable authority that they
have a positive value in their authenticity, whatever may be
their portion of interest. I made the note at the time of con-
versation with an European in high official position in the
Turkish fiscal service. He said that he could speak with con-
fidence because he had very recently compiled a financial
statement which contained the figures which he easily re-
membered. The statement was made in answer to the ques-
tion: "What effect will the loss of the European Provinces
have upon the resources of the Ottoman Empire," and, the
answer was that the effect would be much to the Empire's
economic advantage, for the following reasons : the annual
military expenditures directly chargeable to the support of
the army maintained in the "valayet of Adrianople," as the
province of Thrace is called in the Turkish administration
system, was 1,300,000 pounds Turkish. The annual revenues
from all sources was 1,100,000 pounds Turkish, which left an
annual deficit of 200,000 pounds Turkish for the province of
Thrace alone.

The annual military expenditure for the support of the
army maintained in Macedonia had exceeded the total
revenues, in the preceding years, from 600,000 to 800,000
pounds Turkish. Of the entire disbursements in the Euro-
pean Provinces, the Ottoman Empire expended one third or
more on the military establishment maintained there.

The value of a Turkish pound is about $4.50.

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